Arab Springhttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/arab-spring
en-usFri, 09 Dec 2016 08:40:07 -0500Fri, 09 Dec 2016 08:40:07 -0500The latest news on Arab Spring from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-youtube-taught-me-about-facebook-live-and-violent-footage-2016-7What YouTube taught me about Facebook Live and violent footagehttp://www.businessinsider.com/what-youtube-taught-me-about-facebook-live-and-violent-footage-2016-7
Wed, 13 Jul 2016 18:42:17 -0400Hunter Walk
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/510a9f3aeab8ea8c43000008-1024/yemen arab spring.jpg" alt="Yemeni Arab Spring protesters 2011" data-mce-source="Flickr/Sallam" data-mce-caption="Protesters chant during Arab Spring protests in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, in May 2011." data-link="http://www.flickr.com/photos/31319626@N00/5783045030/" /></p><p>&ldquo;A technical glitch.&rdquo;</p>
<p>That&rsquo;s what Facebook stated was the cause of&nbsp;the temporary removal from their service of the video capturing Philando Castile&rsquo;s shooting. Ben Thompson has a smart<a href="https://stratechery.com/2016/a-technical-glitch/">&nbsp;Stratechery column</a> today about Facebook&rsquo;s emerging role as a Journalism Company. And the internal discussions (debates?) which are likely occurring.</p>
<p>I saw this firsthand during my time at YouTube where in addition to running the product org&nbsp;from 2007-2011, I sat on our Policy Committee. This group helped provide cross-functional input into the Community Standards maintained by our superb Policy and Operations teams. While some of the topics (what defines a &ldquo;fetish video&rdquo;) had humorous aspects, overall there wasn&rsquo;t a more important document at the company than our Community Standards and the enforcement of these guidelines on behalf of the YouTube users.</p>
<p>While the Community Standards certainly evolved throughout my time at YouTube, it was really Middle East protests, and eventually the Arab Spring,&nbsp;that forced us to confront questions of &ldquo;newsworthiness&rdquo; formally for content which would otherwise violate our policies around graphic violence. Remember <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Neda_Agha-Soltan">Neda</a>?</p>
<p>Video which depicted &ndash; or seemed to depict &ndash; injuries and deaths of protesting citizens at the hands of authoritarian governments, soldiers or third party agents. These videos often were uploaded to the site with little contextual data &ndash; sometimes none at all. Uploaded not always from regional IP addresses given the need to obfuscate identity, tunnel out of regions where YouTube was blocked &ndash; or event transported on memory cards out of the Middle East to where they could be safely uploaded by collaborators or NGOs.</p>
<p>Most of us wanted to work hard to leave these videos up on the site and it took a collaborative effort to make it work. Steps we took included:</p>
<ul>
<li>Partnering with in-region or specialized human rights NGOs to help us verify content as authentic.</li>
<li>Training our review teams to be able to judge between graphic violence which might violate our guidelines versus that which had a newsworthiness to it.&nbsp;Remember, we weren&rsquo;t proactively reviewing videos so it was a question of user flagging and other algorithmic determinants which put a video into the review queue.</li>
<li>Creating an interstitial page which warned the viewer about the violent contents of the video versus removing it completely.</li>
<li>Building features such as <a href="http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-blur-objects-in-youtube-videos/">face blurring</a>, which allowed uploaders to obfuscate portions of the video to protect identities when it could lead to collateral damage &ndash; for example, faces of people at a peaceful protest in a country where such organizing is outlawed.</li>
</ul>
<p>What&rsquo;s most important &ndash; IMO &ndash; is that YouTube executives started to think about human rights and activists as a &ldquo;user segment&rdquo; we wanted to support. Commercially there had been a lot of effort to understand what &ldquo;celebrities,&rdquo; &ldquo;media companies,&rdquo; &ldquo;musicians&rdquo; etc wanted from the platform. But until we put some elbow grease behind supporting activism as a use case for YouTube, everything else was anecdotal and at risk of being lost while we prioritized monetization, celebs, and other tangible business goals.</p>
<p>So my hope for Facebook Live &ndash; and Periscope &ndash; is that they&rsquo;re able to not just feel proud they&rsquo;ve built a tool that can help activism occur, but continue to put resources behind supporting activists. Not just with #StayWoke t-shirts (although those are cool), but with engineering resources and policy decisions.</p>
<p><em>Hunter Walk is a partner at Homebrew, a venture capital firm, and previously ran consumer product management for YouTube and was a f<span>ounding member of the product and marketing team at Linden Lab, the creators of online virtual world Second Life. This post originally appeared <a href="https://hunterwalk.com/2016/07/13/what-youtube-taught-me-about-facebook-live-violent-footage/">on his blog</a> and is republished here with permission.</span></em></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-live-and-the-death-of-tv-2016-7" >Facebook just took away the last reason to watch TV</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-youtube-taught-me-about-facebook-live-and-violent-footage-2016-7#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dermatologist-best-way-wash-your-face-2016-11">The 3 worst things you do when you wash your face — according to a dermatologist</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/misconceptions-middle-east-shelly-culbertson-islam-2016-6MIDDLE EAST EXPERT: These are the biggest misconceptions about the regionhttp://www.businessinsider.com/misconceptions-middle-east-shelly-culbertson-islam-2016-6
Wed, 22 Jun 2016 14:45:00 -0400Arielle Berger and Lamar Salter
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<p>Middle East expert, policy analyst at the RAND Corporation think tank, and author of "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fires-Spring-Post-Arab-Journey-Turbulent/dp/1250067049/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1466521358&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=fires+of+spring+culbertson">Fires of Spring</a>" <a href="http://www.rand.org/about/people/c/culbertson_shelly.html">Shelly Culbertson</a> reveals some common misconceptions about the region.</p>
<p><em>Produced by A<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/author/arielle-berger">rielle Berger</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/author/lamar-salter">Lamar Salter</a></em></p>
<p><strong>Follow BI Video: </strong><span></span><a href="https://twitter.com/BI_Video" target="_blank">On Twitter</a></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/misconceptions-middle-east-shelly-culbertson-islam-2016-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mr-robot-was-shaped-by-arab-spring-2016-3How the hit show ‘Mr. Robot’ was shaped by its creator’s experience with the Arab Springhttp://www.businessinsider.com/how-mr-robot-was-shaped-by-arab-spring-2016-3
Sun, 13 Mar 2016 17:14:06 -0400Nathan McAlone
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/568da72dc08a8036008b78f2-1195-896/screen shot 2015-12-08 at 10.09.47 am.png" alt="Mr Robot" data-mce-source="USA" data-link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U94litUpZuc" />&ldquo;Mr. Robot&rdquo; creator Sam Esmail says that his family&rsquo;s experience with Arab Spring was the catalyst that made the final pieces of the show&rsquo;s main character, Elliot, come together.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">"Mr. Robot" revolves around Elliot, a detached programmer who gets involved with a revolutionary hacker group called &ldquo;fsociety.&rdquo; </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The show has been widely praised for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mr-robot-writers-talk-hacking-and-cybersecurity-ces-2016-2016-1/#.VpgKfFPyszU">how accurately it portrays certain elements of hacking</a>, especially compared to the many&nbsp;cheesy Hollywood deceptions of that world that have popped up over the years.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">At a panel at South By Southwest on Sunday, Esmail said the hacking in &ldquo;Mr. Robot&rdquo; was informed by his own &ldquo;nerdy&rdquo; adolescence, which included a poor attempt at hacking in college that got him put on academic probation.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">&ldquo;I wanted to tell a story about that culture,&rdquo; he said, one that he was a peripheral part of.&nbsp;<span>Esmail</span>&nbsp;said he wanted to include all parts of hacker culture, the positives and the negatives, including the loneliness and drug addiction that plagued some of his friends. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">That meant that the first stages of the show's development revolved more around getting the character of Elliot right than about the plot. But&nbsp;<span>Esmail&nbsp;said the</span>&nbsp;real crystallization of Elliot&rsquo;s character didn't come from his childhood, but rather from&nbsp;the experience of Esmail&rsquo;s family in Egypt during <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/5-years-after-arab-spring-we-didnt-need-a-revolution-2016-2">the Arab Spring civil uprisings of 2011</a>.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Esmail, who is Egyptian-American, said that before the Arab Spring he had the angst and social anxiety part of Elliot&rsquo;s character down. But when&nbsp;<span>Esmail</span> visited&nbsp;his family right after the Arab Spring, he realized that anger didn&rsquo;t just have to be a negative emotion. It could also be positive.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">He saw his young cousins using technology to actually make a difference in society, and made the distinction between &ldquo;angst&rdquo; and &ldquo;anger&rdquo; in his mind, something that was critical to charting the evolution of Elliot&rsquo;s character, and the arc of the entire show.</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hbos-silicon-valley-struggles-to-be-realistic-with-crazy-tech-valuations-2016-3" >The real Silicon Valley is so crazy that HBO's 'Silicon Valley' keeps having to re-write lines</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mr-robot-was-shaped-by-arab-spring-2016-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-hackers-target-investors-adam-levin-2016-1">How hackers are using email to steal money from investors </a></p> http://uk.businessinsider.com/libya-instead-of-one-security-apparatus-torturing-people-now-each-militia-has-its-own-2016-2'Instead of having one security apparatus torturing people, now each militia has its own'http://uk.businessinsider.com/libya-instead-of-one-security-apparatus-torturing-people-now-each-militia-has-its-own-2016-2
Sun, 21 Feb 2016 04:00:00 -0500Barbara Tasch
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/56c5c918dd0895fe228b4577-1200-800/rtx1zzvd.jpg" alt="A Libyan Army soldier demonstrates his skill during a military graduation parade in Tripoli December 24, 2015." data-mce-source="REUTERS/Ismail Zitouny" data-mce-caption="A Libyan Army soldier demonstrates his skill during a military graduation parade in Tripoli December 24, 2015." /></p><p>It has now been five years since the start of the Libyan revolution, and the situation in the country has not evolved for the better.</p>
<p>The uprising put an end to the regime of dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Since then, the country has descended into a state of persistent chaos with two separate governments struggling to find a way to work together.</p>
<p>Mattia Toaldo, a <a href="http://www.ecfr.eu/profile/C238" target="_blank">policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations</a>, told Business Insider in an email that although the general state of the country was worse than under Gaddafi's rule,&nbsp;"Authoritarianism has just been decentralised: instead of having one security apparatus torturing people, now each militia has its own," Toaldo said.</p>
<p><span class="s1">He also added that the dictator's era "should not be idealised," and that his many wars and support for terrorism should not be forgotten. </span></p>
<p>The revolution that toppled Gaddafi has continued to wreak havoc all over the country. The ensuing security vacuum has proved to be a windfall for ISIS, which has expanded its operations and taken control of swathes of territory while attacking Libya's oil infrastructures.</p>
<p>"<span class="s1">We should not be concerned by just what ISIS is now, but by its potential, which in Libya is significant." Toaldo said. Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown which is a mere 400 miles from Sicily, is now completely under ISIS control.</span></p>
<p>Numerous attempts to form a unity government between opposition leaders have failed so far. There is civil war between a militia coalition, Libya Dawn, based in Tripoli, and the elected parliament in Tobruk, which is internationally recognized.</p>
<p>Wayne White, a Policy Expert with Washington's Middle East Policy Council, told Business Insider in an email that the security system was "far worse than ever before."</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/56c5c918dd0895fe228b4578-1200-1223/rtx26nx8.jpg" alt="Libya oil infrastructure" data-mce-source="Reuters" />"<span class="s1">Even these two 'governments' control only fragments of the country mostly near the coast and portions of inland oil fields. ISIS has a firm grip on Sirte, and has repulsed attacks from the two governments," White said, "Elsewhere, the country is a patchwork of fiefdoms controlled by various tribal and regional militias." </span></p>
<h2>'Libya was left to simmer on the international backburner'</h2>
<p class="wrapper text" data-reactid=".0.1.1.2.$0.2.3.$0">According to an article published on Thursday in <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/18/exclusive-obama-refuses-to-hit-isis-s-libyan-capital.html" target="_blank">The Daily Beast</a>, the US military has been pushing for more airstrikes and for troops to be sent into Libya. The Obama administration has turned down this plan, three defence officials reportedly told The Daily Beast.</p>
<p class="wrapper text" data-reactid=".0.1.1.2.$0.2.3.$0">A few weeks ago the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/libya-pentagon-considers-military-options-as-islamic-state-expands-in-libya-2016-1">Pentagon announced that it was looking to eventually expand military operations</a> in the North African country, but that they were still gathering intelligence on the ground. But now that a plan has been proposed, there seems to be "... little to no appetite for that in this administration,&rdquo; one defense official told the Daily Beast.</p>
<p data-reactid=".0.1.1.2.$0.2.3.$0">Other European nations who participated in the Libyan revolution, have been dealing with regional crises, and not shown any particular interest in the country's situation.</p>
<div data-reactid=".0.1.1.2.$0.2.3.$1">"While the UN and the West concentrated on ISIS in Syria and Iraq, Libya was left to simmer on the international backburner," White said.</div>
<p>With militias battling each other, few signs that a unity government will be agreed on in the near future, and fading interest from the international community, the future of the country is looking fairly bleak.</p>
<p>A medical student, who was part of the revolution five years ago and now takes care of injured members of militias fighting against ISIS in Libya, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/16/libya-gaddafi-arab-spring-civil-war-islamic-state" target="_blank">told the Guardian</a> that "Back then it was simple, we fought for freedom. But a lot of time, you wonder was it worth it?&rdquo;</p><p><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/libya-instead-of-one-security-apparatus-torturing-people-now-each-militia-has-its-own-2016-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trailer-point-and-shoot-documentary-libyan-revolution-2015-2">This 26-year-old from Baltimore took a 35,000-mile road trip and ended up fighting in the Libyan revolution</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/libya-instead-of-one-security-apparatus-torturing-people-now-each-militia-has-its-own-2016-2LIBYA: 'Instead of having one security apparatus torturing people, now each militia has its own'http://www.businessinsider.com/libya-instead-of-one-security-apparatus-torturing-people-now-each-militia-has-its-own-2016-2
Thu, 18 Feb 2016 08:36:17 -0500Barbara Tasch
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/56c5c918dd0895fe228b4577-1200-800/rtx1zzvd.jpg" alt="A Libyan Army soldier demonstrates his skill during a military graduation parade in Tripoli December 24, 2015." data-mce-source="REUTERS/Ismail Zitouny" data-mce-caption="A Libyan Army soldier demonstrates his skill during a military graduation parade in Tripoli December 24, 2015." /></p><p>It has now been five years since the start of the Libyan revolution, and the situation in the country has not evolved for the better.</p>
<p>The uprising put an end to the regime of dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Since then, the country has descended into a state of persistent chaos with two separate governments struggling to find a way to work together.</p>
<p>Mattia Toaldo, a <a href="http://www.ecfr.eu/profile/C238" target="_blank">policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations</a>, told Business Insider in an email that although the general state of the country was worse than under Gaddafi's rule,&nbsp;"Authoritarianism has just been decentralised: instead of having one security apparatus torturing people, now each militia has its own," Toaldo said.</p>
<p><span class="s1">He also added that the dictator's era "should not be idealised," and that his many wars and support for terrorism should not be forgotten. </span></p>
<p>The revolution that toppled Gaddafi has continued to wreak havoc all over the country. The ensuing security vacuum has proved to be a windfall for ISIS, which has expanded its operations and taken control of swathes of territory while attacking Libya's oil infrastructures.</p>
<p>"<span class="s1">We should not be concerned by just what ISIS is now, but by its potential, which in Libya is significant." Toaldo said. Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown which is a mere 400 miles from Sicily, is now completely under ISIS control.</span></p>
<p>Numerous attempts to form a unity government between opposition leaders have failed so far. There is civil war between a militia coalition, Libya Dawn, based in Tripoli, and the elected parliament in Tobruk, which is internationally recognized.</p>
<p>Wayne White, a Policy Expert with Washington's Middle East Policy Council, told Business Insider in an email that the security system was "far worse than ever before."</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/56c5c918dd0895fe228b4578-1200-1223/rtx26nx8.jpg" alt="Libya oil infrastructure" data-mce-source="Reuters" />"<span class="s1">Even these two 'governments' control only fragments of the country mostly near the coast and portions of inland oil fields. ISIS has a firm grip on Sirte, and has repulsed attacks from the two governments," White said, "Elsewhere, the country is a patchwork of fiefdoms controlled by various tribal and regional militias." </span></p>
<h2>'Libya was left to simmer on the international backburner'</h2>
<p class="wrapper text" data-reactid=".0.1.1.2.$0.2.3.$0">According to an article published on Thursday in <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/18/exclusive-obama-refuses-to-hit-isis-s-libyan-capital.html" target="_blank">The Daily Beast</a>, the US military has been pushing for more airstrikes and for troops to be sent into Libya. The Obama administration has turned down this plan, three defence officials reportedly told The Daily Beast.</p>
<p class="wrapper text" data-reactid=".0.1.1.2.$0.2.3.$0">A few weeks ago the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/libya-pentagon-considers-military-options-as-islamic-state-expands-in-libya-2016-1">Pentagon announced that it was looking to eventually expand military operations</a> in the North African country, but that they were still gathering intelligence on the ground. But now that a plan has been proposed, there seems to be "... little to no appetite for that in this administration,&rdquo; one defense official told the Daily Beast.</p>
<p data-reactid=".0.1.1.2.$0.2.3.$0">Other European nations who participated in the Libyan revolution, have been dealing with regional crises, and not shown any particular interest in the country's situation.</p>
<div data-reactid=".0.1.1.2.$0.2.3.$1">"While the UN and the West concentrated on ISIS in Syria and Iraq, Libya was left to simmer on the international backburner," White said.</div>
<p>With militias battling each other, few signs that a unity government will be agreed on in the near future, and fading interest from the international community, the future of the country is looking fairly bleak.</p>
<p>A medical student, who was part of the revolution five years ago and now takes care of injured members of militias fighting against ISIS in Libya, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/16/libya-gaddafi-arab-spring-civil-war-islamic-state" target="_blank">told the Guardian</a> that "Back then it was simple, we fought for freedom. But a lot of time, you wonder was it worth it?&rdquo;</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/libya-instead-of-one-security-apparatus-torturing-people-now-each-militia-has-its-own-2016-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trailer-point-and-shoot-documentary-libyan-revolution-2015-2">This 26-year-old from Baltimore took a 35,000-mile road trip and ended up fighting in the Libyan revolution</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/tunisia-after-five-years-of-democracy-2016-2Something troubling is happening in ‘the lone bright spot of the Arab Spring'http://www.businessinsider.com/tunisia-after-five-years-of-democracy-2016-2
Sat, 13 Feb 2016 11:10:00 -0500Ethan Mefford
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ed. note: Remember the Arab Spring? Once seen as a progressive leap forward, the wave of protests that began in 2010 have fallen flat in many countries. A rare&nbsp;bright spot has been&nbsp;newly democratic Tunisia, the place where it all began. Even there, however,&nbsp;pessimism is rising. Harvard graduate student <a href="http://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/people/ethan-mefford">Ethan Mefford</a>, after a recent stay in&nbsp;the country, offers some&nbsp;reasons to be worried &mdash;and hopeful &mdash; below.</span></em></p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56bbb421dd089562308b471f-3648-2736/tunisian-beach.jpg" alt="tunisian beach" data-mce-source="Ethan Mefford" data-link="http://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/people/ethan-mefford" />January 14 marked the five-year anniversary of Tunisian dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali&rsquo;s flight to Saudi Arabia, and the country is in a retrospective mood. In &ldquo;the lone bright spot of the Arab Spring,&rdquo; a phrase that western media has made the country&rsquo;s unofficial tag line, there is a general sense of apprehension. For such a young democracy, Tunisia is remarkably politics-weary.</p>
<p>Nidaa Tounes&nbsp;(Call for&nbsp;Tunisia), the secular party of President B&eacute;ji Ca&iuml;d Essebsi, formed&nbsp;a four-party governing coalition after winning a plurality of seats in the 2014 parliamentary election but itself is splintering from lack of direction and the disillusionment of many members with an autocratic structure built around Essebsi and his son, Hafedh. In the callow world of Tunisian politics, Essebsi&rsquo;s Nidaa relied as much on its opposition to the Islamist Ennahda party as on any positive vision, and Ennahda&rsquo;s participation in the coalition has denied Nidaa its raison d&rsquo;&ecirc;tre.</p>
<p>The sense of political disillusionment is spiked by an anemic economy, with security fears crippling the country&rsquo;s critical tourism industry, linked to as many as one in five jobs in the country. This combination is fueling a sense of nostalgia among Tunisians for the good old days under Ben Ali.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/56bbb3a5dd08958a148b48b5-1500-1125/tunisia-tunis-drinking-tea-naguib-mahfouz.jpg" alt="tunisia tunis drinking tea naguib mahfouz" data-mce-source="Ethan Mefford" data-link="http://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/people/ethan-mefford" /></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The nostalgia has been building for several years. A late-2014 documentary, </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">7 Vies</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (Seven Lives, a double entendre that refers to the Arabic saying that cats have seven lives, rather than our familiar nine, as well as to a symbol of Ben Ali&rsquo;s reign, inaugurated by a bloodless coup on November 7, 1987), created by the young Tunisian director Amine Boufa&iuml;ed and the French-Tunisian journalist Lilia Blaise, examines the resurgence of Ben Ali&rsquo;s popularity, interviewing a broad swath of Tunisians, of whom roughly half, modest and elite alike, look back fondly on the felled strongman.</span></p>
<p>The sentiment is most common among Tunisians over 40, while the youth who drove the revolution remain broadly anti-Ben Ali, relishing their freedom to post any and all ideas to social media, and their sense that they can bring about change by taking to the streets. Dismissive of traditional news sources as tendentious, corrupt, or both, young Tunisians turn to online sources of content to get what they consider to be an unfiltered look at the state of the country. Nawaat.org, a leader among such sites, offers content in Arabic, French, and English, indicating the cosmopolitan outlook of the cohort of young Tunisian activists who are its contributors. Such sources, while skeptical of Tunisia&rsquo;s tyro class of politicians, would rather see Ben Ali return to Tunisia to serve time in prison than further time in the presidency.</p>
<p>The lack of youth nostalgia for the deposed dictator is not an indication of faith in the current political establishment, nor of optimism for the future of the country: a recent Nawaat article raised the question of whether it was even worth voting. The glut of unemployed recent college graduates was a major cause of the revolution, and little has been done to release that pressure over the past five years. The youth unemployment rate is estimated to hover around 30%, or twice the national average.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/56bbb3a5dd08958a148b48b6-1400-1050/tunisia-flags-zaytuna-mosque-tunis.jpg" alt="tunisia flags zaytuna mosque tunis" data-mce-source="Ethan Mefford" data-link="http://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/people/ethan-mefford" /></p>
<p>&ldquo;They are all the same,&rdquo; Osama, a 20-year old business major said of the parties involved in the governing coalition, though the coalition headed by the secular Nidaa Tounes includes the Islamist Ennahda party. Osama plans to spend a year studying in Moscow &ldquo;to let things settle down,&rdquo; but he does not anticipate improvement in the economic situation and believes that his future may lie in France. &ldquo;Under Ben Ali, at least there was security,&rdquo; Osama added, though he acknowledged that things could never return to how they were.</p>
<p>&ldquo;In 2011, it was revealed that the emperor had no clothes,&rdquo; observed Youssef Seddik, an esteemed Tunisian philosopher and anthropologist in &ldquo;7 Vies.&rdquo; Ben Ali&rsquo;s feared security apparatus, which reportedly comprised some 150,000 agents in a country of just under 11 million, was said to have infiltrated every neighborhood but was revealed to be a paper tiger in the face of overwhelming popular anger. When army chief General Rachid Ammar refused to commit his soldiers to crushing the popular uprising in mid-January 2011, Ben Ali had nowhere left to turn. For a man whose name was synonymous with the security apparatus, the revelation that his prize creation was ineffectual should have dealt a death blow to his prestige.</p>
<p>And it has, in a sense. The longing that many Tunisians express for the security and stability of the Ben Ali era is notional, nostalgia for a simpler bygone era rather than a true desire to see him reinstalled. Few Tunisians believe that Ben Ali, toppled by unarmed youth, could actually smother the well-armed Islamist insurgency that pesters the country&rsquo;s security forces in the mountainous and desert reaches of the south and east of the country and occasionally lands dramatic urban blows &mdash; the attacks on the Bardo Museum and the beach resort at Sousse and the bombing of the Presidential Guard bus last December in the heart of Tunis. &ldquo;Ben Ali could not put the security problems back in the box,&rdquo; Osama concluded ruefully.</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/56bbb3a5dd08958a148b48b7-1200-600/tunisia-graffiti.jpg" alt="tunisia graffiti" data-mce-source="Ethan Mefford" data-link="http://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/people/ethan-mefford" /></p>
<p>At the root of Tunisia&rsquo;s insecurity is the chaos in neighboring Libya. Tunisian extremists easily cross the border to gain training and combat experience in the militia and ISIS-infested melee. At 285 miles long, securing the border against the importation of arms and explosives is a Sisyphean task for Tunisia&rsquo;s overstretched security forces. The government has begun to erect a fence that will eventually stretch from the coast 100 miles inland, but smuggling across the border via official border crossings is an essential economic activity in southern Tunisia, and weapons have found their way into the steady stream of goods.</p>
<p>Troubles across the region stemming from the Arab Spring also weigh heavily on the collective conscience of Tunisia, the birthplace of the uprisings. There is a remarkable lack of triumphalism among Tunisians regarding the moment that this small country acted as the fulcrum for the entire Arab world.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We feel sorry for what other countries have suffered,&rdquo; lamented Sihem, an architect in her thirties. Educated Tunisians are acutely aware that their country enjoyed significant advantages over its regional counterparts that made the compromises critical to its foray into democracy possible. The religiously homogeneous population (Tunisians are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim) is enriched by an active and broad-based civil society, and the army has a tradition of professionalism and political quiescence. The lack of one or more of these conditions has led to the failed revolutions and bloodshed that have marred Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56bbb3a5dd08958a148b48b8-1500-1073/tunisia-berber-village-takrouna.jpg" alt="tunisia berber village takrouna" data-mce-source="Ethan Mefford" data-link="http://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/people/ethan-mefford" /></p>
<p>It is this striking degree of national self-awareness and maturity that fosters optimism for Tunisia&rsquo;s future. The mutterings of nostalgia for Ben Ali are fueled by immediate concerns over security and the economy, and while these issues will remain intractable in the near-term, there is a general recognition among Tunisians that the only path through the difficulties leads forward.</p>
<p>The democratic path is, however, beset by challenges from across the political spectrum. Short of the violent danger posed by Islamic extremists, secular Tunisians read into Ennahda&rsquo;s willingness to subordinate itself to Nidaa Tounes in the current governing coalition an underhanded plan to dominate the next elections at the expense of the discredited secular parties, ushering in an Islamist political hegemon that may sooner or later reject the constraints of democracy. Ennahda, for its part, has reason to perceive in the nostalgia for Ben Ali a willingness among secular Tunisians to forgo civil liberties in exchange for a crackdown on Islamists, extreme and moderate alike, of the kind that Ben Ali launched in response to Islamist agitations at the time of the Gulf War.</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Countervailing these corrosive suspicions is an awareness among Tunisians of what is at stake. As they look around the region, they see spoiled hopes and scarring violence. It is this perspective that paved the way for the crucial compromise that defined the 2014 constitution: Sharia was not mentioned as a source of legislation for the country, while Article One declared Tunisia&rsquo;s religion to be Islam. It is also this perspective that can keep the country united and moving forward.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tunisia-after-five-years-of-democracy-2016-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabias-makes-worlds-tallest-building-jeddah-tower-2015-12">Saudi Arabia is building the world’s tallest building – nearly twice the height of One World Trade Center</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/tunisia-five-years-of-democracy-2016-2Something troubling is happening in ‘the lone bright spot of the Arab Spring'http://www.businessinsider.com/tunisia-five-years-of-democracy-2016-2
Sat, 13 Feb 2016 10:14:18 -0500Ethan Mefford, Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ed. note: Remember the Arab Spring? Once seen as a progressive leap forward, the wave of protests that began in 2010 have fallen flat in many countries. A rare&nbsp;bright spot has been&nbsp;newly democratic Tunisia, the place where it all began. Even there, however,&nbsp;pessimism is rising. Harvard graduate student <a href="http://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/people/ethan-mefford">Ethan Mefford</a>, after a recent stay in&nbsp;the country, offers some&nbsp;reasons to be worried &mdash;and hopeful &mdash; below.</span></em></p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56bbb421dd089562308b471f-3648-2736/tunisian-beach.jpg" alt="tunisian beach" data-mce-source="Ethan Mefford" data-link="http://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/people/ethan-mefford" />January 14 marked the five-year anniversary of Tunisian dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali&rsquo;s flight to Saudi Arabia, and the country is in a retrospective mood. In &ldquo;the lone bright spot of the Arab Spring,&rdquo; a phrase that western media has made the country&rsquo;s unofficial tag line, there is a general sense of apprehension. For such a young democracy, Tunisia is remarkably politics-weary.</p>
<p>Nidaa Tounes&nbsp;(Call for&nbsp;Tunisia), the secular party of President B&eacute;ji Ca&iuml;d Essebsi, formed&nbsp;a four-party governing coalition after winning a plurality of seats in the 2014 parliamentary election but itself is splintering from lack of direction and the disillusionment of many members with an autocratic structure built around Essebsi and his son, Hafedh. In the callow world of Tunisian politics, Essebsi&rsquo;s Nidaa relied as much on its opposition to the Islamist Ennahda party as on any positive vision, and Ennahda&rsquo;s participation in the coalition has denied Nidaa its raison d&rsquo;&ecirc;tre.</p>
<p>The sense of political disillusionment is spiked by an anemic economy, with security fears crippling the country&rsquo;s critical tourism industry, linked to as many as one in five jobs in the country. This combination is fueling a sense of nostalgia among Tunisians for the good old days under Ben Ali.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/56bbb3a5dd08958a148b48b5-1500-1125/tunisia-tunis-drinking-tea-naguib-mahfouz.jpg" alt="tunisia tunis drinking tea naguib mahfouz" data-mce-source="Ethan Mefford" data-link="http://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/people/ethan-mefford" /></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The nostalgia has been building for several years. A late-2014 documentary, </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">7 Vies</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (Seven Lives, a double entendre that refers to the Arabic saying that cats have seven lives, rather than our familiar nine, as well as to a symbol of Ben Ali&rsquo;s reign, inaugurated by a bloodless coup on November 7, 1987), created by the young Tunisian director Amine Boufa&iuml;ed and the French-Tunisian journalist Lilia Blaise, examines the resurgence of Ben Ali&rsquo;s popularity, interviewing a broad swath of Tunisians, of whom roughly half, modest and elite alike, look back fondly on the felled strongman.</span></p>
<p>The sentiment is most common among Tunisians over 40, while the youth who drove the revolution remain broadly anti-Ben Ali, relishing their freedom to post any and all ideas to social media, and their sense that they can bring about change by taking to the streets. Dismissive of traditional news sources as tendentious, corrupt, or both, young Tunisians turn to online sources of content to get what they consider to be an unfiltered look at the state of the country. Nawaat.org, a leader among such sites, offers content in Arabic, French, and English, indicating the cosmopolitan outlook of the cohort of young Tunisian activists who are its contributors. Such sources, while skeptical of Tunisia&rsquo;s tyro class of politicians, would rather see Ben Ali return to Tunisia to serve time in prison than further time in the presidency.</p>
<p>The lack of youth nostalgia for the deposed dictator is not an indication of faith in the current political establishment, nor of optimism for the future of the country: a recent Nawaat article raised the question of whether it was even worth voting. The glut of unemployed recent college graduates was a major cause of the revolution, and little has been done to release that pressure over the past five years. The youth unemployment rate is estimated to hover around 30%, or twice the national average.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/56bbb3a5dd08958a148b48b6-1400-1050/tunisia-flags-zaytuna-mosque-tunis.jpg" alt="tunisia flags zaytuna mosque tunis" data-mce-source="Ethan Mefford" data-link="http://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/people/ethan-mefford" /></p>
<p>&ldquo;They are all the same,&rdquo; Osama, a 20-year old business major said of the parties involved in the governing coalition, though the coalition headed by the secular Nidaa Tounes includes the Islamist Ennahda party. Osama plans to spend a year studying in Moscow &ldquo;to let things settle down,&rdquo; but he does not anticipate improvement in the economic situation and believes that his future may lie in France. &ldquo;Under Ben Ali, at least there was security,&rdquo; Osama added, though he acknowledged that things could never return to how they were.</p>
<p>&ldquo;In 2011, it was revealed that the emperor had no clothes,&rdquo; observed Youssef Seddik, an esteemed Tunisian philosopher and anthropologist in &ldquo;7 Vies.&rdquo; Ben Ali&rsquo;s feared security apparatus, which reportedly comprised some 150,000 agents in a country of just under 11 million, was said to have infiltrated every neighborhood but was revealed to be a paper tiger in the face of overwhelming popular anger. When army chief General Rachid Ammar refused to commit his soldiers to crushing the popular uprising in mid-January 2011, Ben Ali had nowhere left to turn. For a man whose name was synonymous with the security apparatus, the revelation that his prize creation was ineffectual should have dealt a death blow to his prestige.</p>
<p>And it has, in a sense. The longing that many Tunisians express for the security and stability of the Ben Ali era is notional, nostalgia for a simpler bygone era rather than a true desire to see him reinstalled. Few Tunisians believe that Ben Ali, toppled by unarmed youth, could actually smother the well-armed Islamist insurgency that pesters the country&rsquo;s security forces in the mountainous and desert reaches of the south and east of the country and occasionally lands dramatic urban blows &mdash; the attacks on the Bardo Museum and the beach resort at Sousse and the bombing of the Presidential Guard bus last December in the heart of Tunis. &ldquo;Ben Ali could not put the security problems back in the box,&rdquo; Osama concluded ruefully.</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/56bbb3a5dd08958a148b48b7-1200-600/tunisia-graffiti.jpg" alt="tunisia graffiti" data-mce-source="Ethan Mefford" data-link="http://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/people/ethan-mefford" /></p>
<p>At the root of Tunisia&rsquo;s insecurity is the chaos in neighboring Libya. Tunisian extremists easily cross the border to gain training and combat experience in the militia and ISIS-infested melee. At 285 miles long, securing the border against the importation of arms and explosives is a Sisyphean task for Tunisia&rsquo;s overstretched security forces. The government has begun to erect a fence that will eventually stretch from the coast 100 miles inland, but smuggling across the border via official border crossings is an essential economic activity in southern Tunisia, and weapons have found their way into the steady stream of goods.</p>
<p>Troubles across the region stemming from the Arab Spring also weigh heavily on the collective conscience of Tunisia, the birthplace of the uprisings. There is a remarkable lack of triumphalism among Tunisians regarding the moment that this small country acted as the fulcrum for the entire Arab world.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We feel sorry for what other countries have suffered,&rdquo; lamented Sihem, an architect in her thirties. Educated Tunisians are acutely aware that their country enjoyed significant advantages over its regional counterparts that made the compromises critical to its foray into democracy possible. The religiously homogeneous population (Tunisians are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim) is enriched by an active and broad-based civil society, and the army has a tradition of professionalism and political quiescence. The lack of one or more of these conditions has led to the failed revolutions and bloodshed that have marred Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56bbb3a5dd08958a148b48b8-1500-1073/tunisia-berber-village-takrouna.jpg" alt="tunisia berber village takrouna" data-mce-source="Ethan Mefford" data-link="http://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/people/ethan-mefford" /></p>
<p>It is this striking degree of national self-awareness and maturity that fosters optimism for Tunisia&rsquo;s future. The mutterings of nostalgia for Ben Ali are fueled by immediate concerns over security and the economy, and while these issues will remain intractable in the near-term, there is a general recognition among Tunisians that the only path through the difficulties leads forward.</p>
<p>The democratic path is, however, beset by challenges from across the political spectrum. Short of the violent danger posed by Islamic extremists, secular Tunisians read into Ennahda&rsquo;s willingness to subordinate itself to Nidaa Tounes in the current governing coalition an underhanded plan to dominate the next elections at the expense of the discredited secular parties, ushering in an Islamist political hegemon that may sooner or later reject the constraints of democracy. Ennahda, for its part, has reason to perceive in the nostalgia for Ben Ali a willingness among secular Tunisians to forgo civil liberties in exchange for a crackdown on Islamists, extreme and moderate alike, of the kind that Ben Ali launched in response to Islamist agitations at the time of the Gulf War.</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Countervailing these corrosive suspicions is an awareness among Tunisians of what is at stake. As they look around the region, they see spoiled hopes and scarring violence. It is this perspective that paved the way for the crucial compromise that defined the 2014 constitution: Sharia was not mentioned as a source of legislation for the country, while Article One declared Tunisia&rsquo;s religion to be Islam. It is also this perspective that can keep the country united and moving forward.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tunisia-five-years-of-democracy-2016-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabias-makes-worlds-tallest-building-jeddah-tower-2015-12">Saudi Arabia is building the world’s tallest building – nearly twice the height of One World Trade Center</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/5-years-after-arab-spring-we-didnt-need-a-revolution-2016-25 years after Egypt’s Arab Spring: ‘We didn’t need a revolution’http://www.businessinsider.com/5-years-after-arab-spring-we-didnt-need-a-revolution-2016-2
Thu, 11 Feb 2016 09:26:22 -0500Sudarsan Raghavan and Heba Habib
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/56452d892491f9c12e8b4a33-2984-2238/rtx15bq5.jpg" alt="Arab Spring" data-mce-source="REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El-Ghany" data-mce-caption="Women shout slogans against the government and members of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists during a protest in Cairo November 13, 2013." /></p><p>It was a day Ahmed Hassan will never forget. He was in Tahrir Square in the heart of the Egyptian capital, the nexus of the Arab Spring revolution. It was around sunset, and the crowds were dancing and reciting poetry. It was the end of President&nbsp;Hosni Mubarak's nearly 30-year rule.</p>
<p>"It was the most beautiful moment when we heard of Mubarak's resignation," said Hassan, a youthful 29-year-old in his dreadlocks and a green hoodie. "I danced and was overjoyed. We were all happy together."</p>
<p>On Thursday, it will have been five years since Mubarak was forced out of power. His ouster ushered in the anticipation of democracy and freedoms. Instead, Egyptians were thrust into one of the most uncertain and repressive periods of their modern history -- its denouement still unfolding today.</p>
<p>The anniversary passed quietly across Egypt and no visible signs of people commemorating Mubarak's downfall.</p>
<p>After an interim military government, which was punctuated by abuses and military trials, Islamist President Mohamed Morsi became the country's first democratically elected leader. But he granted himself unlimited powers, and his government cracked&nbsp;down on dissent, triggering nationwide protests.</p>
<p>In July 2013, Egypt's powerful military overthrew the unpopular Morsi and outlawed his Muslim Brotherhood, branding the decades-old Islamist movement a terrorist organization.</p>
<p>The following year, the chief of the armed forces, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, was elected president and has overseen the harshest crackdown on dissent since the republic was established by Gamal Abdel Nasser following the 1952 revolution that ended Egypt's&nbsp;monarchy.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/539dcfe95afbd3f3508b4567-800-574/egypt-cabinet-formation-delayed-as-pm-continues-talks.jpg" alt="Egyptians celebrate after the swearing-in ceremony of President elect Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, in front of the Presidential Palace in Cairo, June 8, 2014. REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih " data-mce-source="Thomson Reuters" data-mce-caption="Egyptians celebrate after swearing-in ceremony of President elect al-Sissi in Cairo" /></p>
<p>Now, thousands of Islamists and scores of secular activists are languishing in jails, more than at any period during Mubarak's reign. Some have been shot dead in the streets. Freedoms have been curbed, and the police are increasingly accused of torture,&nbsp;forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests.</p>
<p>The crackdowns have helped fuel an escalating war against Islamic insurgents based in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen. The Sissi rule has also seen the rise of an Islamic State affiliate that asserted responsibility&nbsp;for the bombing of a Russian airliner that killed 224 people last year.</p>
<p>Today, even key figures of the 2011 uprising, such as the secular April 6 Youth Movement, have stayed in the shadows, reluctant to take to the streets again. "I am a bit depressed and in pain and feel as if I am surrounded," said Shereen Talaat , a well-known activist. "We are the ones being imprisoned, the ones being prevented from traveling, prevented from leaving the country."</p>
<p>On the streets near Tahrir Square on Wednesday, there were mixed emotions over Mubarak's fall. Some expressed alarm at the weakening economy. Joblessness is rising; the government recently reduced subsidies on electricity.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/51dc3a38ecad049126000007-4000-2667/ap208764681184.jpg" alt="AP208764681184" data-mce-source="Manu Brabo - Associated Press" data-link="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Mideast-Egypt/5d04969857204ef6a0f0541496b56207/3/0" /></p>
<p>"We started off very hopeful. It seemed like we were really moving forward," said Farouk Abd el Halim, 72, a shopkeeper. "But now things are terrible. This would never have happened under Morsi. ... If things continue like this it will explode again."</p>
<p>Others like Mohamed Amin are content with Sissi. The 28-year-old tourism industry employee recalled how his business was shattered by the chaos and violence.</p>
<p>"We didn't need a revolution," Amin said. "Everything was fine under Mubarak. The economy was booming; there were tourists everywhere. The only people complaining were the activists. I lost my job; the tourists left."</p>
<p>Morsi, he continued, was "going to destroy Egypt and take us back to the Middle Ages. I'm glad Sissi is in power now because there is more stability, and things are improving slowly. I think things will get better. But it would be even better if Mubarak returned."</p>
<p>The former autocrat was convicted last year on corruption charges and handed a prison sentence. He's being held at a military hospital in Cairo.</p>
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Mon, 25 Jan 2016 07:59:00 -0500Hamza Hendawi And Maggie Michael
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/56a617a45124c9866d8b456d-800/ap-egypt-marks-5th-anniversary-of-uprising-against-mubarak.jpg" alt="An Egyptian policemen stands guard on Police Day, which is also the anniversary of the 2011 uprising, in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Jan. 25, 2016. Egypt on Monday marked the fifth anniversary of the popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak but failed to bring the country the democracy and freedom the young, pro-democracy youths who fueled it had dreamt of. The run-up to the anniversary has seen stepped-up security measures in Cairo, a new wave of arrests and security checks in the city's downtown, an area popular with young, pro-democracy activists. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)" border="0" /></p><p>CAIRO (AP) &mdash; Egypt on Monday marked the fifth anniversary of the popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak but failed to bring about the goals of democracy and freedom the young activists who spearheaded the "revolution" had espoused.</p>
<p>Amid concerns over new outbreaks of violence, the run-up to the anniversary saw stepped-up security in the capital, Cairo, as well as a new wave of arrests and security checks in the city's downtown area, where cafes and art galleries are popular with young, pro-democracy activists.</p>
<p>Thousands of police were deployed outside police stations, security offices and vital installations, while riot police backed by armored vehicles stood ready around Cairo's Tahrir Square &mdash; the focal point of the 2011 uprising &mdash; and outside the nearby, Nile-side headquarters of state television. Streets leading to key government buildings were sealed off.</p>
<p>The day's first violence occurred in the Cairo suburb of October 6, where police killed two suspected militants during a raid. The official MENA news agency said explosives and firearms were found in the raided apartment.</p>
<p>Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has since the overthrow of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013 overseen a harsh crackdown that has jailed thousands of Islamists and scores of secular activists. The crackdown has forced many of the youths who took part in the uprising to flee Egypt or abandon politics.</p>
<p>The crackdown has also coincided with a significant escalation of a Sinai-based insurgency by Islamic militants and the emergence of Egypt's affiliate of the Islamic State group.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56a61a4cc08a8034008bc1d7-1000-669/rtx23vyh.jpg" alt="A pro-government protester runs and tries to give flowers to members of security forces during the fifth anniversary of the uprising that ended the 30-year reign of Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, Egypt, January 25, 2016. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh" data-mce-source="REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh" data-mce-caption="A pro-government protester runs and tries to give flowers to members of security forces during the fifth anniversary of the uprising that ended the 30-year reign of Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, Egypt, January 25, 2016." />El-Sissi's government has curbed freedoms and allowed the nation's police force to return to some of their Mubarak-era practices, including torture, random arrests and, more recently, forced disappearances. A recently elected parliament is packed with el-Sissi's supporters and unlikely to challenge his policies.</p>
<p>In speeches over the weekend, el-Sissi vowed a firm response to any unrest. On Sunday, however, he paid tribute to the 2011 uprising and the nearly 900 protesters killed during the revolt. Egyptians under his rule, he boasted, were building a "modern" state that upholds the values of democracy and freedom.</p>
<p>About 50 el-Sissi supporters gathered Monday in Tahrir Square, handing out candy and flowers to passers-by and members of the security forces. Egypt was observing a double holiday &mdash; both Police Day, which dates back to 1952, and Revolution Day, marking the 2011 uprising.</p>
<p>One man carried a cage with an effigy of Morsi inside it. A police officer briefly examined the cage before allowing the man to stand in the square.</p>
<p>Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, now outlawed and branded a terrorist organization, said Sunday it would stage an "unprecedented and unexpected" wave of protests to mark the anniversary, but there were no reports of significant demonstrations by the afternoon.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/56a619f4c08a8036008bc16b-1000-684/rtx23w24.jpg" alt="Egyptians celebrate on Tahrir Square during the fifth anniversary of the uprising that ended the 30-year reign of Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, Egypt, January 25, 2016. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany" data-mce-source="REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany" data-mce-caption="Egyptians celebrate on Tahrir Square during the fifth anniversary of the uprising that ended the 30-year reign of Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, Egypt, January 25, 2016." />The Islamist group has been decimated since 2013, with most of its top and second tier leaders in jail or in exile. Recently, their demonstrations have involved only a few dozen participants and been confined to back streets in poor Cairo neighborhoods and elsewhere.</p>
<p>The secular April 6 Youth Movement, a key player in the 2011 uprising, meanwhile said it would not take to the streets on the anniversary but urged followers to wear mourning black.</p>
<p>Mohamad ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and one of the uprising's spiritual fathers, sent an innocuous message on his Twitter account to the youths behind the uprising, saying the "country is proud of you and indebted to you."</p>
<p>"Be confident that the Revolution will triumph, because you're the future and because no force can prevail over the force of right," tweeted ElBaradei, who left to live in self-imposed exile abroad just weeks after Morsi's ouster.</p>
<p>In an interview published Monday, Egypt's best known secular prisoner, blogger and activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah, spoke of his despair, saying he regretted not leaving the country when he could have in 2013.</p>
<p>"When I am free, which is not any time soon at all, I want to travel abroad, away from our region and ... any other place in which I may be distracted by conflict," said Abdel-Fattah, who is serving a five-year sentence for violating a law that effectively bans street demonstrations.</p>
<p>Another icon of the uprising, Wael Ghoneim, urged fellow "revolutionaries" not to despair.</p>
<p>"The January Revolution will only be defeated when everyone falls silent," he said, addressing activists. "Don't despair. Don't be silent. Your words are a revolution."</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/heres-why-a-once-hostile-arab-country-may-open-ties-with-israel-2016-1" >Here's why a once-hostile Arab country is suddenly talking about opening up ties with Israel</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-egypt-marks-5th-anniversary-of-uprising-against-mubarak-2016-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-find-hidden-tomb-egypt-king-tut-pyramid-nefertiti-2015-11">Scientists say they’re 90% sure they’ve found a hidden chamber in King Tut's tomb — and they have a theory on who it might belong to </a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-tunisias-young-democracy-stumbles-under-terror-threat-2015-8The cradle of the Arab Spring is frayinghttp://www.businessinsider.com/ap-tunisias-young-democracy-stumbles-under-terror-threat-2015-8
Mon, 24 Aug 2015 08:38:00 -0400Paul Schemm
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/55db0bf55afbd325548b4567-800/ap-tunisias-young-democracy-stumbles-under-terror-threat.jpg" alt="Neji Bghouri, the head of Tunisia's journalists' union poses for a portrait in front of his office after discussing the new threats to free expression in Tunis, Tunisia, Sunday Aug. 8, 2015. Seven men spent a week in prison on terrorism charges, suffering what they claim was torture under custody, before a judge released them for lack of evidence. But as they stepped out of the courthouse in early August, plainclothes policemen swooped in and spirited them away. (AP Photo/Paul Schemm)" border="0" /></p><p>TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) &mdash; The seven men spent a week in a Tunisian prison on terrorism charges, suffering what they claim was torture under custody, before a judge released them for lack of evidence. But as they stepped out of the courthouse in early August, plainclothes policemen swooped in and spirited them away.</p>
<p>After their lawyers protested, Justice Minister Salah Benaissa told local radio that arresting suspects without a warrant was now permissible because of the new war on terror: "There is an agreement between the ministry and the security forces," he said, "that allows them to act against terrorism without previous authorization."</p>
<p>Tunisia, the cradle of the Arab Spring, was its only country to emerge with a democracy marked by increased freedoms and regular elections. But a pair of devastating terrorist attacks that killed nearly 60 foreign tourists has triggered a state of emergency, and police have been arresting hundreds in sweeps. It is prompting many activists to fear a return to the days of repression under late dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.</p>
<p>Tunisia's fledgling democracy has been cited as the hope for a region in which the democratic promises of the Arab Spring have largely collapsed into chaos &mdash; as in Libya &mdash; or brought in harsher new regimes as in Egypt. But Tunisia's freedoms may be buckling as the country clamps down to deal with terror attacks threatening an economy already teetering on the edge of insolvency.</p>
<p>"I have never felt so worried as these days," said Achraf Awadi, who demonstrated in the streets for Ben Ali's downfall, and went on to help form I-Watch, an organization monitoring elections and promoting democracy in Tunisia.</p>
<p>Together with several other civic groups, Awadi is sounding the alarm over new laws passed by the parliament that he says will overturn the gains of the past few years, and re-empower the hated police. These include laws to rehabilitate old regime businessmen accused of corruption, weaken the transitional justice process and protect security forces from attacks by journalists.</p>
<p>"If, under the new state of emergency, you can't even protest in front of the assembly, you have all the ingredients to pass any dictatorship-like laws," he said, maintaining that the police remain unreformed even four years after the revolution.</p>
<p>Under Ben Ali, Tunisia was a police state in which the feared Interior Ministry harshly repressed dissent; the corrupt economy was run by close friends and family of the dictator.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55db0f0a9dd7cc18008b5551-4584-3222/ap_280806998686.jpg" alt="In this March 20, 2015 file photo, a man places a Tunisian flag onto a police car as a policeman stands guard during a demonstration two days after gunmen attacked the museum and killed scores of people in Tunis, Tunisia." data-mce-source="AP Images/Christophe Ena" data-mce-caption="In this March 20, 2015 file photo, a man places a Tunisian flag onto a police car as a policeman stands guard during a demonstration two days after gunmen attacked the museum and killed scores of people in Tunis, Tunisia." />After the revolution, the newly elected government led by the moderate Islamist Ennahda Party began passing laws to hold corrupt businessmen accountable, and set up a Truth and Dignity Commission to examine the crimes of the dictatorship.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of the revolution, however, the economy suffered, strikes and demonstrations proliferated and a radical Islamist movement arose that assassinated politicians and attacked tourist sites. People demanded a stronger state.</p>
<p>The Interior Ministry has since embarked on a whirlwind campaign of arrests, detaining hundreds and hundreds on terrorism charges &mdash; often on weak evidence.</p>
<p>On Aug. 5, the man who had been arrested with great fanfare as the "mastermind" behind the Bardo National Museum attack several months earlier was released &mdash; apparently because he was not involved.</p>
<p>Critics maintain that the sweeps only further alienate disenfranchised youth and say new strategies of persuasion are needed to deal with terrorism.</p>
<p>"The attacks have had a psychological effect on the police and has given them a sense of impunity," said Michael Ayyari of the International Crisis Group, which just published a report about the need for reform in the Interior Ministry. "They now have more freedom of movement and action."</p>
<p>In the fall, Tunisians elected a new party to power, Nida Tunis (Tunisia's Call), which evokes the glories of the Tunisia's first post-independence leader, Habib Bourguiba, who laid the foundations for the state under his paternalistic, authoritarian rule.</p>
<p>Since it came to power, Nida Tunis has strengthened the police with the new anti-terror law and the state of emergency, and put the brakes on other measures aimed at corrupt businessmen and officials from the old regime.</p>
<p>One of their most controversial pieces of legislation is an economic reconciliation law that seeks to close the files on businessmen accused of corruption. The law would set up a system whereby businessmen could pay some of the money they are accused of stealing, in exchange for an amnesty. More importantly, they would be exempt from the Truth and Dignity Commission set up last year.</p>
<p>The head of the commission, Siham Bensedrine, has spoken out vociferously against the draft law. Aside from subverting efforts at transitional justice, she maintained that granting amnesty to businessmen will just perpetuate the old system of cronyism and corruption, and scare away foreign investors.</p>
<p>"This draft law won't boost the economy," she said. "Instead it will make permanent all the obstacles that started the economic crisis and will restore the system of corruption that existed under Ben Ali."</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/55db0f929dd7cc16008b5530-4225-2817/ap_619600523635.jpg" alt="In this Monday, June 29, 2015 file photo, a hooded Tunisian police officer stands guard ahead of the visit of top security officials of Britain, France, Germany and Belgium at the scene of the shooting attack in front of the Imperial Marhaba hotel in the Mediterranean resort of Sousse, Tunisa." data-mce-source="AP Images/Abdeljalil Bounhar" data-mce-caption="In this Monday, June 29, 2015 file photo, a hooded Tunisian police officer stands guard ahead of the visit of top security officials of Britain, France, Germany and Belgium at the scene of the shooting attack in front of the Imperial Marhaba hotel in the Mediterranean resort of Sousse, Tunisa." />The commission is set to start public hearings in September and has received so far 15,000 complaints, mostly related to torture but some involving economic crimes.</p>
<p>Mohsen Marzouk, the secretary general of Nida Tunis and one of the top contenders to be the next president of the country, dismissed the concerns of what he calls a "tiny minority" &mdash; pointing out that most polls have Tunisians calling for more authority, not less.</p>
<p>While transitional justice is important, he said Tunisia is in the midst of a titanic economic struggle and a war on terrorism, and doesn't have time for a lengthy process to go over a half century's worth of crimes.</p>
<p>"How can we fight terrorism and work together on the economy &mdash; how can we involve all of Tunisia's capacities &mdash; if we can't have reconciliation?" he asked from his office, which was decorated with several portraits of Bourguiba.</p>
<p>No parliamentarian voted against the anti-terror law passed a month after the attack on the resort in Sousse. Ten deputies who abstained were roundly attacked in the government-influenced media.</p>
<p>An editorial in the largest French-language paper, La Presse, demanded they be stripped of their parliamentary immunity and tried for supporting terrorism.</p>
<p>Neji Bghouri, the head of the journalists' union, said these kinds of editorials were reminiscent of the previous regime. An editor and blogger have been charged with terrorism for their writings, and a law guaranteeing access to information was pulled by the government.</p>
<p>"Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, the old practices are returning," Bghouri said. "We are still a country in transition, one foot in democracy, the other in dictatorship."</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-tunisias-young-democracy-stumbles-under-terror-threat-2015-8#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/middle-east-unrest-coincides-drought-climate-change-global-warming-map-2015-4">Jeff Sachs: Here's why the Middle East is going to get a lot worse</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/egypt-is-pushing-forward-with-a-new-anti-terror-law-2015-7Egypt is pushing forward with a law that could roll back the major victory of the 2011 revolutionhttp://www.businessinsider.com/egypt-is-pushing-forward-with-a-new-anti-terror-law-2015-7
Mon, 06 Jul 2015 18:54:52 -0400Sarah El-Deeb
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/559b0641ecad047358078014-1200-924/egyptian-president-sisi-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Egyptian President Sisi"></p><p>CAIRO (AP) — After a series of stunning militant attacks, Egypt's government is pushing through a controversial new anti-terrorism draft bill that would set up special terrorism courts, shorten the appeals process, give police greater powers of arrest and imprison journalists who report information on attacks that differs from the official government line.</p>
<p>The draft raised concerns that officials are taking advantage of heightened public shock at last week's audacious attacks to effectively enshrine into law the notorious special emergency laws which were in place for decades until they were lifted following the 2011 ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Rather than reviewing security policies since the attacks, officials have largely been focusing blame on the media for allegedly demoralizing troops and on the slowness of the courts.</p>
<p>The 55-article bill has not been officially made public but was leaked to the Egyptian press over the weekend. A judicial official who vetted the draft confirmed its contents to The Associated Press on Monday. The bill is currently in a review process, leaving it unclear when it will be issued or whether changes could be made. Since Egypt has not had a parliament for more than two years, laws are issued by the president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, after going through the Cabinet. In the absence of parliament, any debate is largely through media or behind closed doors.</p>
<p>The leaked copy of the bill brought an outcry and demands for changes in the draft from Egypt's journalists union and from senior judges. "The disaster is that now they have decided to punish those who are carrying the news and not those responsible for the catastrophes," Khaled Balshi, of the Press Syndicate, told the AP. The government "seeks a press that fits it, a la North Korea."</p>
<p>The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has said that at least 18 journalists were behind bars in Egypt as of June 1 and accused the government of using the pretext of national security to crackdown on freedoms. Four more journalists were arrested last week, the group said.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/559b065beab8ea6d1d449bf6-1200-924/egypt-sinai-attacks-isis-3.jpg" border="0" alt="egypt sinai attacks isis"></p>
<p>"Imposing jail time for publishing news about any topic, including government's account of public events, contradicts Egypt's own constitution and defies any standard of free press. Journalists' basic function in any democratic society is to vet government behavior and Egypt is not an exception," Sherif Mansour of CPJ wrote to AP in an email. The bill "pushes further the government ability to, and its practice of, crushing critical and independent voices inside the country."</p>
<p>Still, the draft law was hailed by Egypt's political parties and other public figures as a much-needed tool to combat violence that has been rising since the military ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi two years ago.</p>
<p>The Cabinet approved the draft Wednesday. That was two days after a car bomb in an upscale Cairo neighborhood killed the top public prosecutor Hisham Barakat. That same Wednesday, Islamic militants launched a multi-pronged attack attempting to seize a northern Sinai town, hitting the military with suicide attacks and battling soldiers for hours.</p>
<p>In the next required step, the State Council — a judicial body that must vet bills and advises the government on legal issues — reviewed the draft and made a few changes most at the request of the government, said the judicial official, who is a member of the council. Those amendments toughened some provisions, including introducing a prison sentence for anyone who records or broadcasts any court proceedings in a terrorism case without court permission. The official asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/559b067beab8ead621449bf3-1200-924/egypt-sinai-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Egypt Sinai"></p>
<p>The Cabinet will now consider whether to make any changes sought by representatives of the judiciary, whose opinions are non-binding.</p>
<p>At Barakat's funeral, a visibly angry el-Sissi shouted that courts must act faster. "We have left it all to you, to justice. We have left with you, for two years," he shouted. "Please, please, we want prompt courts and prompt and fair laws ... The trials and the laws won't work in this manner and under these circumstances. This may work with regular people, but not these people. Only prompt laws will work."</p>
<p>His anger was matched by TV reporters calling for the quick implementation of death sentences issued against Islamists, including Morsi.</p>
<p>The government also aggressively pushed back against foreign media, which officials and the pro-state media accused of exaggerating the degree of the Sinai attacks. The military spokesman warned against using foreign media reports. The Foreign Ministry in a briefing urged foreign reporters to avoid using terms like "Islamists" or "jihadis" and suggested in a paper distributed to reporters that they instead use terms like "terrorists," ''savages," and "eradicators."</p>
<p>The draft bill states that "anyone who intends to publish news or statements about terrorist attacks in way that differs from official statements issued by concerned authorities is punishable by imprisonment of no less than two years." An earlier version stipulated the news must be untrue to be punished, but the word "untrue" was dropped, the judicial official said.</p>
<p>The bill would create special courts to hear terrorism cases. It would also eliminate one of the two layers of appeal that are currently allowed in criminal cases, and it would shorten the deadlines for filing appeals to 40 days from 60.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/559b069769bedd4f659865f4-1200-924/egypt-president-mohammed-morsi-6.jpg" border="0" alt="Egypt President Mohammed Morsi"></p>
<p>It would also create a new category of detention — "restraining" — meaning police can detain someone solely on the basis of suspicion without evidence of a crime for a 7-day-period, which prosecutors can renew an unlimited number of times. The draft also grants the president the right to declare curfews and evacuate residents from an area for a period of six months, with the approval of the Cabinet. It says law enforcers cannot be questioned over use of force if it is to protect themselves from imminent danger and is proportional.</p>
<p>A rights activist who specializes in legal reforms, Mohammed Zaree, said the vague terms in that provision would ensure police impunity for abuses.</p>
<p>"To say that we have legal vacuum is to mislead the public. Egypt doesn't need new laws," Zaree said. "To increasingly depend on exceptional laws has been the main reason for decreased efficiency in security agencies."</p>
<p>Egypt's Supreme Judicial Council, made up of the 13 top judges, expressed to the government its opposition to creating special terrorism courts and to reducing the time for appeal.</p>
<p>Speaking to the AP, one judge who is not on the council but is high ranking in the judiciary, said the creation of special courts denies the defendants their right to a natural judge. He called the bill "half-cooked," saying it was clumsily written. He agreed to express his concerns to the AP on condition his name not be used because judges traditionally refrain from talking to the press.</p>
<p>He also bristled at the implication that rising terrorism was linked to delays in court proceedings. "As if the judiciary is to blame. This is not the causal relation," he said. "Do they want to get to the truth or to take revenge from a suspect?"</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/egypt-is-pushing-forward-with-a-new-anti-terror-law-2015-7#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/prevent-blisters-jogging-running-shoes-sneakers-athletic-shoelace-hole-2015-5">Someone figured out the purpose of the extra shoelace hole on your running shoes — and it will blow your mind</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cia-doesnt-do-easy--former-cia-deputy-director-michael-morell-talks-to-business-insider-2015-5#ixzz3atZNCdwR'THE CIA DOESN'T DO EASY' — Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell talks to Business Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-cia-doesnt-do-easy--former-cia-deputy-director-michael-morell-talks-to-business-insider-2015-5#ixzz3atZNCdwR
Sat, 23 May 2015 09:37:00 -0400Armin Rosen
<p><em><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5460d7be6bb3f71d13b76fac-1200-706/mike morrell.jpg" border="0" alt="mike morrell">As deputy director and two-time acting director of the CIA, 33-year agency veteran Michael Morell was close to every major national security development of the past two decades. </em></p>
<p><em>His recently published book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-War-Time-Terrorism-From/dp/1455585661">The Great War of Our Time</a>, is an insider's account of the tumultuous post-9/11 period, recounting the Iraq War, the Arab Spring, the death of Osama bin Laden, the Snowden disclosures, and the rise of ISIS from the perspective of one of the highest-ranking intelligence officers in the US.</em></p>
<p><em>Business Insider spoke to Morell by phone on May 15. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.</em></p>
<p><strong>BI: How did everybody get every stage of the Arab Spring wrong? The intelligence community didn’t predict it, they did a poor job of predicting the effect that it would have on Al Qaeda...</strong></p>
<p>I want to push back on you a little bit. We didn’t get everything wrong.</p>
<p>As I explain in the book, we got the strategic picture exactly right. We had been telling policymakers for a number of years that pressures were building in Arab societies. Economic pressures, social pressures, political pressures. These pressures were building for change, so we nailed that.</p>
<p>What we got wrong — we didn’t really get it wrong, we didn't see it —&nbsp;we didn't see it reach the boiling point. So we didn't say in 2011, "Gosh, things are getting really bad, these pressures are really rising we’re really worried about the next 6-12 months." We didn’t do that. We missed that. And I explained partly what we need to do going forward.</p>
<p>Then when the Arab Spring started, as I say in the book, we got one thing right and we got one thing wrong.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The thing we got right is, once the Arab Spring started in Tunisia we said this is going to spread. And I actually give the story of one of our papers that shows that we were saying it was going to spread. We saw immediately that this was going to have a contagion effect. So home run on that.</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Then the other thing that we got wrong — this was the first thing we actually got wrong as opposed to either got right or didn't see coming —&nbsp;and that was the judgement that this was going to undercut al Qaeda and their narrative that violence is necessarily for political change.</span></p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/51d409dd69bedd7c66000010-1200-924/cairo egypt tahrir square protests july 2 2013 wafaa badry-14.jpg" border="0" alt="Cairo Egypt Tahrir Square Protests July 2 2013 Wafaa Badry 14" style="color: #000000;"></p>
<p>It turns out that maybe that judgement itself, the judgement of undercutting the narrative, was not the wrong judgment.</p>
<p>But we didn't see the other two dynamics that were created by the Arab Spring that gave al Qaeda a big boon, which was the destruction of capability to deal with terrorists — Libya’s the best example of that where the security service, the intelligence service, and the military fell apart, so even though you had a government willing to deal with terrorists they couldn’t because they had no capability — and the other is where states still had the capability but were unwilling to use it. Morsi’s Egypt is a great example of that. So we didn’t really see those two dynamics.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So I’d push back on the premise that we had it all wrong.</span></p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Do you think there are any systematic flaws in the way that intelligence from the Middle and around al Qaeda is handled?</strong></p>
<p>One of the reasons I wrote the book, and you know by reading the preface, is there are a lot of myths out there about us — that we’re James Bond and we’re all-powerful, we get everything right. And the other is that we get everything wrong, everything we touch falls apart. And then the third&nbsp;is that we’re completely rogue, the White House doesn’t know what we’re doing, Congress doesn’t know what we’re doing.</p>
<p>All three of those are complete and total myths. The reality is that we’ve got really incredible, dedicated, hard-working people trying to keep the country safe. We get many many things right, but they get some things wrong, just like any organization does. Just like any human being does, you get some things wrong. And I want Americans to understand that.<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>The other thing I’d say is that none of these are easy issues. The CIA doesn’t do easy. When you're asked what’s the status of the Iranian nuclear weapons program or when you’re asked what’s the status of a particular north Korean missile and is it capable of reaching the United States — those are really tough questions.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">We don’t do easy, we do hard, and we get some things wrong. And because intelligence is so important that when we do get things wrong, it’s kind of consequential. So it just shows you it really underscores how important intelligence is.</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><strong>Q: Do you think that there’s a danger in underestimating the threat from al Qaeda because of the rise of ISIS, since it seems like in some respects the group has been eclipsed and has a major competitor for jihadist hearts and minds around the world?</strong></p>
<p>I’m concerned about ISIS. I’m concerned about the threat they pose to stability in the region, I’m concerned about the long-term terrorist threat they pose to us — long term — and I’m concerned about the short-term terrorist threat they pose in radicalizing young men and women.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But they still don’t rise to the level of threat that three al-Qaeda organizations pose right now. Al Qaeda in Yemen, the Khorasan Group in Syria, which is part of al-Nusra which is an al-Qaeda organization; and still, despite the significant degradation and decimation, the al-Qaeda senior leadership in the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan — those three organizations still have the ability to reach out to western Europe and the United States to conduct an attack, or to direct an attack here.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/53fd026269beddfa5b8b4567-1200-924/rtxywnm.jpg" border="0" alt="Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula"><br></span></p>
<p>You raise an important point which is: As we’re all focused on ISIS, the media and the government and everybody is focused on ISIS because they’re so loud and noisy in terms of what they do and in terms of their social media, that we not forget about these other al-Qaeda groups.</p>
<p><strong>Q: Do you think that more of the Abbottabad documents need to be released, that there needs to be a better understanding of exactly what al Qaeda wants or what its strategy is that could be explained by some of these documents that haven't been made public yet?</strong></p>
<p>I was involved in this at the very end of my tenure so there’s a lot that’s happened that I’m not 100 percent sure about, but I think the ones that have been released have underscored al Qaeda's continued desire to attack the United States in very particular ways.</p>
<p>Some of the other documents contain things that would put intelligence sources and methods at risk so they’re not going to be declassified for a long, long time. I don’t know where that balance stands, I don’t know if there’s more stuff that can come out. I’m just not able to give you a lot of precision there.</p>
<p><strong>Q: Edward Snowden’s first 11 days after he arrived in Hong Kong — what’s the thinking about what he was doing?</strong></p>
<p>A: I say in the book that there are some things I can’t talk about with regard to that and I’ll repeat it to you: There are things I can’t talk about with regard to that.</p>
<p>But I will repeat what I wrote in the book: If anybody thinks that Chinese intelligence wasn’t extremely interested in him, and that Russian intelligence wasn’t extremely interested in him in Moscow, then you don’t have a very good understanding of those two services. Let me leave it at that.</p>
<p><strong>Q: There's been controversy in the past couple of days about Jeb Bush’s answer to the question of whether he would have invaded Iraq. Is it fair to ask candidates about that? Some commentators have raised the point that we had to invade to know that we didn’t have to invade, in a way [see <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418314/how-should-jeb-bush-have-answered-iraq-war-question-mario-loyola">here</a>]. Do you think it kind of mangles the issue to even bring this question up?</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>I think the way it got mangled is by asking the question: If you know now or if we know now what we know, would you have done this? That’s a really stupid question. That’s looking back with 20/20 hindsight.<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/55579bd96da811e70a782f0c-1200-1000/jeb bush george.jpg" border="0" alt="Jeb Bush George"></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A more reasonable question is: If you were in President Bush’s shoes and had all that context, what would you have done? And that’s still really an unfair question because it’s really tough to put yourself in those shoes.</span></span></p>
<p>In the book, I don’t take a position on whether it was a right thing or a wrong thing. I just try to paint the context in which President Bush was making this decision. As Governor Bush said, President Bush wasn’t the only one to think this was a good idea. The majority of Congress though this was a good idea.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mike-morell-talks-pakistan-and-bin-laden-2015-5" >A former CIA deputy director explains what it was like dealing with Pakistan after the bin Laden raid</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cia-doesnt-do-easy--former-cia-deputy-director-michael-morell-talks-to-business-insider-2015-5#ixzz3atZNCdwR#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-burpee-full-body-workout-2015-3">This simple exercise will work out every muscle in your body</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cia-doesnt-do-easy--former-cia-deputy-director-michael-morell-talks-to-business-insider-2015-5'THE CIA DOESN'T DO EASY' — Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell talks to Business Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-cia-doesnt-do-easy--former-cia-deputy-director-michael-morell-talks-to-business-insider-2015-5
Mon, 18 May 2015 16:01:00 -0400Armin Rosen
<p><em><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5460d7be6bb3f71d13b76fac-1200-706/mike morrell.jpg" border="0" alt="mike morrell">As deputy director and two-time acting director of the CIA, 33-year agency veteran Michael Morell was close to every major national security development of the past two decades. </em></p>
<p><em>His recently published book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-War-Time-Terrorism-From/dp/1455585661">The Great War of Our Time</a>, is an insider's account of the tumultuous post-9/11 period, recounting the Iraq War, the Arab Spring, the death of Osama bin Laden, the Snowden disclosures, and the rise of ISIS from the perspective of one of the highest-ranking intelligence officers in the US.</em></p>
<p><em>Business Insider spoke to Morell by phone on May 15. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.</em></p>
<p><strong>BI: How did everybody get every stage of the Arab Spring wrong? The intelligence community didn’t predict it, they did a poor job of predicting the effect that it would have on Al Qaeda...</strong></p>
<p>I want to push back on you a little bit. We didn’t get everything wrong.</p>
<p>As I explain in the book, we got the strategic picture exactly right. We had been telling policymakers for a number of years that pressures were building in Arab societies. Economic pressures, social pressures, political pressures. These pressures were building for change, so we nailed that.</p>
<p>What we got wrong — we didn’t really get it wrong, we didn't see it —&nbsp;we didn't see it reach the boiling point. So we didn't say in 2011, "Gosh, things are getting really bad, these pressures are really rising we’re really worried about the next 6-12 months." We didn’t do that. We missed that. And I explained partly what we need to do going forward.</p>
<p>Then when the Arab Spring started, as I say in the book, we got one thing right and we got one thing wrong.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The thing we got right is, once the Arab Spring started in Tunisia we said this is going to spread. And I actually give the story of one of our papers that shows that we were saying it was going to spread. We saw immediately that this was going to have a contagion effect. So home run on that.</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Then the other thing that we got wrong — this was the first thing we actually got wrong as opposed to either got right or didn't see coming —&nbsp;and that was the judgement that this was going to undercut al Qaeda and their narrative that violence is necessarily for political change.</span></p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/51d409dd69bedd7c66000010-1200-924/cairo egypt tahrir square protests july 2 2013 wafaa badry-14.jpg" border="0" alt="Cairo Egypt Tahrir Square Protests July 2 2013 Wafaa Badry 14" style="color: #000000;"></p>
<p>It turns out that maybe that judgement itself, the judgement of undercutting the narrative, was not the wrong judgment.</p>
<p>But we didn't see the other two dynamics that were created by the Arab Spring that gave al Qaeda a big boon, which was the destruction of capability to deal with terrorists — Libya’s the best example of that where the security service, the intelligence service, and the military fell apart, so even though you had a government willing to deal with terrorists they couldn’t because they had no capability — and the other is where states still had the capability but were unwilling to use it. Morsi’s Egypt is a great example of that. So we didn’t really see those two dynamics.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So I’d push back on the premise that we had it all wrong.</span></p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Do you think there are any systematic flaws in the way that intelligence from the Middle and around al Qaeda is handled?</strong></p>
<p>One of the reasons I wrote the book, and you know by reading the preface, is there are a lot of myths out there about us — that we’re James Bond and we’re all-powerful, we get everything right. And the other is that we get everything wrong, everything we touch falls apart. And then the third&nbsp;is that we’re completely rogue, the White House doesn’t know what we’re doing, Congress doesn’t know what we’re doing.</p>
<p>All three of those are complete and total myths. The reality is that we’ve got really incredible, dedicated, hard-working people trying to keep the country safe. We get many many things right, but they get some things wrong, just like any organization does. Just like any human being does, you get some things wrong. And I want Americans to understand that.<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>The other thing I’d say is that none of these are easy issues. The CIA doesn’t do easy. When you're asked what’s the status of the Iranian nuclear weapons program or when you’re asked what’s the status of a particular north Korean missile and is it capable of reaching the United States — those are really tough questions.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">We don’t do easy, we do hard, and we get some things wrong. And because intelligence is so important that when we do get things wrong, it’s kind of consequential. So it just shows you it really underscores how important intelligence is.</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><strong>Q: Do you think that there’s a danger in underestimating the threat from al Qaeda because of the rise of ISIS, since it seems like in some respects the group has been eclipsed and has a major competitor for jihadist hearts and minds around the world?</strong></p>
<p>I’m concerned about ISIS. I’m concerned about the threat they pose to stability in the region, I’m concerned about the long-term terrorist threat they pose to us — long term — and I’m concerned about the short-term terrorist threat they pose in radicalizing young men and women.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But they still don’t rise to the level of threat that three al-Qaeda organizations pose right now. Al Qaeda in Yemen, the Khorasan Group in Syria, which is part of al-Nusra which is an al-Qaeda organization; and still, despite the significant degradation and decimation, the al-Qaeda senior leadership in the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan — those three organizations still have the ability to reach out to western Europe and the United States to conduct an attack, or to direct an attack here.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/53fd026269beddfa5b8b4567-1200-924/rtxywnm.jpg" border="0" alt="Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula"><br></span></p>
<p>You raise an important point which is: As we’re all focused on ISIS, the media and the government and everybody is focused on ISIS because they’re so loud and noisy in terms of what they do and in terms of their social media, that we not forget about these other al-Qaeda groups.</p>
<p><strong>Q: Do you think that more of the Abbottabad documents need to be released, that there needs to be a better understanding of exactly what al Qaeda wants or what its strategy is that could be explained by some of these documents that haven't been made public yet?</strong></p>
<p>I was involved in this at the very end of my tenure so there’s a lot that’s happened that I’m not 100 percent sure about, but I think the ones that have been released have underscored al Qaeda's continued desire to attack the United States in very particular ways.</p>
<p>Some of the other documents contain things that would put intelligence sources and methods at risk so they’re not going to be declassified for a long, long time. I don’t know where that balance stands, I don’t know if there’s more stuff that can come out. I’m just not able to give you a lot of precision there.</p>
<p><strong>Q: Edward Snowden’s first 11 days after he arrived in Hong Kong — what’s the thinking about what he was doing?</strong></p>
<p>A: I say in the book that there are some things I can’t talk about with regard to that and I’ll repeat it to you: There are things I can’t talk about with regard to that.</p>
<p>But I will repeat what I wrote in the book: If anybody thinks that Chinese intelligence wasn’t extremely interested in him, and that Russian intelligence wasn’t extremely interested in him in Moscow, then you don’t have a very good understanding of those two services. Let me leave it at that.</p>
<p><strong>Q: There's been controversy in the past couple of days about Jeb Bush’s answer to the question of whether he would have invaded Iraq. Is it fair to ask candidates about that? Some commentators have raised the point that we had to invade to know that we didn’t have to invade, in a way [see <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418314/how-should-jeb-bush-have-answered-iraq-war-question-mario-loyola">here</a>]. Do you think it kind of mangles the issue to even bring this question up?</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>I think the way it got mangled is by asking the question: If you know now or if we know now what we know, would you have done this? That’s a really stupid question. That’s looking back with 20/20 hindsight.<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/55579bd96da811e70a782f0c-1200-1000/jeb bush george.jpg" border="0" alt="Jeb Bush George"></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A more reasonable question is: If you were in President Bush’s shoes and had all that context, what would you have done? And that’s still really an unfair question because it’s really tough to put yourself in those shoes.</span></span></p>
<p>In the book, I don’t take a position on whether it was a right thing or a wrong thing. I just try to paint the context in which President Bush was making this decision. As Governor Bush said, President Bush wasn’t the only one to think this was a good idea. The majority of Congress though this was a good idea.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mike-morell-talks-pakistan-and-bin-laden-2015-5" >A former CIA deputy director explains what it was like dealing with Pakistan after the bin Laden raid</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cia-doesnt-do-easy--former-cia-deputy-director-michael-morell-talks-to-business-insider-2015-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-burpee-full-body-workout-2015-3">This simple exercise will work out every muscle in your body</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/new-bin-laden-documents-show-how-al-qaeda-prepared-to-exploit-the-arab-spring-2015-5New bin Laden documents show how al-Qaeda prepared to exploit the Arab Springhttp://www.businessinsider.com/new-bin-laden-documents-show-how-al-qaeda-prepared-to-exploit-the-arab-spring-2015-5
Wed, 06 May 2015 07:03:00 -0400David Ignatius
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5329c4a86bb3f7de1cbe2962-1200-1715/ap120427045709.jpg" border="0" alt="Osama Bin Laden"></p><p>In the months before his death in May 2011, &nbsp;was discussing new gambits — from a truce with Pakistan to opportunistic alliances with jihadist groups spawned by the Arab Spring — so that he could focus on tipping what he called "the balance of fear" with his main enemy, the United States.</p>
<p>This picture of a cagey, quirky bin Laden, directing a terrorist "great game" from his secret lair in Abbottabad, Pakistan, emerges in eight documents released a few months ago.</p>
<p>They were declassified to bolster the U.S. government's case against a Pakistani named Abid Naseer but received scant media attention.</p>
<p>Naseer was convicted in March for his role in an alleged al-Qaeda plot to bomb the New York subway. The documents deserve a closer look.</p>
<p>The new bin Laden files show that he recognized the opportunities that Arab upheaval offered for al-Qaeda and was moving to exploit them.</p>
<p>Al-Qaeda's main leadership had been rocked by America's drone war, but the group still had big ambitions, even at a time when U.S. officials said it was buckling.</p>
<p>The bin Laden of these documents is ruminating about big strategic ideas but also micromanaging personnel decisions and counterespionage tactics. In one passage, he admonishes his deputy, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, to pay more attention to climate change that might affect Somalia, a key recruiting area; in another, he proposes sending al-Qaeda recruits to universities to master advanced technologies that could benefit the terror group.</p>
<p>Bin Laden speaks in the aristocratic voice of a terrorist-intellectual, a Muslim version of the 19th-century anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. In one paragraph of a message to Rahman, he ominously presses for news about "a big operation inside America." In the next paragraph, he asks blithely: "If you have any brother who is knowledgeable about poetry, please let us know about it."</p>
<p>Bin Laden and his lieutenants believed in early 2011 that the world was moving their way, despite the harassment of drone attacks. Rahman explained: "We are currently following the Arab revolutions and the changes taking place in Arab countries." He mentioned Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria, and said, "In general, we think these changes are sweeping, and there is good in them, God willing."</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/50e5b8c669bedd210600000e-1200-858/al jazeera osama.jpg" border="0" alt="al jazeera osama bin laden">Rahman urged his boss to send a message about "the demise of these tyrants," expressing solidarity with the protesters. "You could support the revolutions against oppression, corruption, criminality, and tyranny." He explained that he had sent al-Qaeda operatives to Libya, where there was "an active Jihadist Islamic renaissance underway." That jihadist presence helped drive the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi the next year.</p>
<p>Even as bin Laden was seeking to capitalize on the Arab upheaval, he was considering local truces with Pakistan and among feuding factions in North Africa. Rahman said his operatives had conveyed this stand-down message to the Pakistani government, including contact with former intelligence chief Hamid Gul, and was exchanging messages with a senior Taliban official named Tayeb Agha (who would later meet secretly with the United States).</p>
<p>Rahman succinctly summarized the truce offer to Pakistan: "You became part of the battle when you sided with the Americans. If you were to leave us and our affairs alone, we would leave you alone." Bin Laden concurred, noting: "We would like to neutralize whomever we possibly can during our war with our bigger enemy, America."</p>
<p>At that time, the United States was beginning secret peace feelers with the Taliban. Gul allegedly told his al-Qaeda contacts: "We are putting pressure on them [America] to negotiate with al-Qaeda . . . [and] that negotiating with the Taliban separate from al-Qaeda is pointless."</p>
<p>The most tantalizing nugget in these documents is Rahman's claim that the British, too, were exploring a separate peace. He told bin Laden that according to Libyan operatives in Britain, "British intelligence spoke to them . . . [to] find out what they [al-Qaeda] thought of the following idea: England is ready to leave Afghanistan if al-Qaeda would explicitly commit to not moving against England or her interests." A spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington said "the claims are completely untrue."</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/51f0488beab8ea5956000000-1200-667/binladenak.jpg" border="0" alt="binladenak">Hunkered down in Abbottabad, bin Laden was utterly focused on striking the United States "in its heartland." He noted that the slow bleed wasn't working: Vietnam had been far more costly to America than Afghanistan; al-Qaeda's allies would have to kill 100 times more people to equal the Vietnam death toll.</p>
<p>What was needed, he said a few weeks before his death, was another "large operation inside America [that] affects the security and nerves of 300&nbsp;million Americans." Al-Qaeda and its offshoots haven't achieved that goal yet.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-bin-laden-documents-show-how-al-qaeda-prepared-to-exploit-the-arab-spring-2015-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-burpee-full-body-workout-2015-3">This simple exercise will work out every muscle in your body</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/cia-we-dropped-the-ball-on-al-qaedas-rebound-2015-5Former CIA chief: We totally dropped the ball on al Qaeda's reboundhttp://www.businessinsider.com/cia-we-dropped-the-ball-on-al-qaedas-rebound-2015-5
Mon, 04 May 2015 10:15:00 -0400Jeremy Bender
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/554775246bb3f7ea0b33ba2b-1200-924/michael-morell-cia-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Michael Morell CIA"></p><p>A former CIA chief has admitted in a new tell-all book that the intelligence organization badly misjudged Qaeda's rebound during the Arab Spring, Greg Miller of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/former-cia-official-cites-agencys-failure-to-see-al-qaedas-rebound/2015/05/03/d68e7292-f028-11e4-8abc-d6aa3bad79dd_story.html">The Washington Post reports</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1455585661?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creativeASIN=1455585661&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;tag=thewaspos09-20">The Great War of Our Time</a>," former CIA chief Michael Morell recounts his three-decade career in the agency. He reportedly places special focus on counter-terrorism and the resurgence of al Qaeda and later ISIS.</p>
<p>Particularly noteworthy is Morell's admission that the US intelligence community believed that the Arab Spring would undermine al Qaeda's message and help to shift the Middle East away from terrorism, especially after the May 2011 death of Osama bin Laden.&nbsp;</p>
<p><span>“We thought and told policy-makers that this outburst of popular revolt would damage al-</span><br><span>Qaeda by undermining the group’s narrative,” Morell wrote.</span></p>
<p>Daveed&nbsp;Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/DaveedGR/status/594908971875639297">described&nbsp;</a>Morell's statement as "a pretty big admission."&nbsp;</p>
<p><span>The Arab Spring triggered the collapse of long-serving secular autocratic regimes in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Tunisia, and was arguably one of the sparks for the still-ongoing civil war in Syria. The chaos unleashed during the Arab Spring also led to conservative retrenchment in Egypt and the Persian Gulf states.</span></p>
<p><span>Morell wrote that the</span>&nbsp;failure to predict the growth of the jihadist threat following the uprisings was because of the CIA's own failure to have reliable human intelligence sources on the ground in the various nations where the unrest was taking place. Instead, the CIA had grown accustomed to relying on information from Middle Eastern intelligence services, some of them attached to the regimes swept away during the Arab Spring protests.&nbsp;</p>
<p>“We were lax in creating our own windows into what was happening, and the leadership we were relying on was isolated and unaware of the tidal wave that was about to hit,” Morell notes in his book.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/552d17c8eab8ea341f4fe558-800-870/screen shot 2015-04-14 at 9.33.13 am.png" border="0" alt="ISIS Control Pentagon Map"></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Today al Qaeda and ISIS control vast stretches of territory in the Middle Eas. ISIS controls an area about the size of Belgium in Iraq and Syria, while having affiliates active in Egypt's </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-dozens-of-suspected-militants-killed-in-egypts-north-sinai-sources-2015-2">Sinai Peninsula</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-executed-15-yemeni-soldiers-2015-5">Yemen</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, and </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-now-has-a-foothold-in-an-oil-rich-mediterranean-port-city-2015-3">Libya</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p>Al Qaeda has been <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/face-successes-al-qaida-adapts-grows-stronger-30784898">adapting</a> in response to the rise of ISIS. One of the primary rebel groups in Syria is the al qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, which is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-syrian-military-is-on-the-verge-of-collapse-2015-4">currently guiding</a> the first major successful rebel push against the Assad regime in almost two years.</p>
<p>Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has also largely taken advantage of the chaos in Yemen to expand its own area of operations. The group is now present in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/these-maps-show-where-yemens-conflict-could-be-heading-2015-3">nearly half</a> of the country.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/551d21d4ecad04430fc2b3a1-837-881/screenshot 2015-04-02 06.55.11.png" border="0" alt="yemen"></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/al-qaeda-is-back-in-big-way-2015-1" >Al Qaeda is back in a big way</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cia-we-dropped-the-ball-on-al-qaedas-rebound-2015-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/secret-world-war-two-era-basement-inside-grand-central-trains-nazis-2015-3">We went inside a secret basement under Grand Central that was one of the biggest World War II targets</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/egyptian-president-mohammed-morsi-sentenced-to-20-years-in-prison-2015-4A court has sentenced ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi to 20 years in prisonhttp://www.businessinsider.com/egyptian-president-mohammed-morsi-sentenced-to-20-years-in-prison-2015-4
Tue, 21 Apr 2015 05:08:49 -0400
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/553612e56bb3f7610f67867e-480-/egypt-president-mohammed-morsi.jpg" border="0" alt="Egypt President Mohammed Morsi" width="480"></p><p>CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian criminal court on Tuesday sentenced ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi to 20 years in prison over the killing of protesters in 2012, the first verdict to be issued against the country's first freely elected leader.</p>
<p>The Cairo Criminal Court issued the verdict as Morsi and other defendants in the case — mostly Muslim Brotherhood leaders — stood in a soundproof glass cage inside a makeshift courtroom at Egypt's national police academy.</p>
<p>The case stems from violence outside the presidential palace in December 2012. Morsi's supporters attacked opposition protesters, sparking clashes that killed at least 10 people.</p>
<p>Judge Ahmed Youssef dropped murder charges and said the sentence was linked to the "show of force" and unlawful detention associated with the case.</p>
<p>In addition to Morsi, 12 Brotherhood leaders and Islamist supporters, including Mohammed el-Beltagy and Essam el-Erian, also were sentenced to 20 years in prison.</p>
<p>Morsi and the rest of the defendants raised the four-finger sign symbolizing the sit-in at the Rabaah al-Adawiya mosque, where hundreds were killed when security forces violently dispersed the sprawling sit-in by Morsi's supporters on Aug. 14, 2013.</p>
<p>Morsi faces several other trials along with thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members following the military overthrowing him in 2013.</p>
<p>Morsi was ousted following demonstrations by millions of people calling on him to leave office.</p>
<p>Morsi is now held at a high security prison near the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. His incarceration there followed four months of detention at an undisclosed location.</p>
<p>In past sessions, Morsi and most of the defendants turned their backs to the court when Youssef played several video recordings of the clashes outside the palace in 2012.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/egyptian-president-mohammed-morsi-sentenced-to-20-years-in-prison-2015-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/charge-iphone-faster-apple-battery-life-2015-2">How to supercharge your iPhone in only 5 minutes</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/this-4-year-old-report-shows-how-badly-syria-spiraled-out-of-control-2015-3This 4-year-old report shows how badly Syria spiraled out of controlhttp://www.businessinsider.com/this-4-year-old-report-shows-how-badly-syria-spiraled-out-of-control-2015-3
Mon, 16 Mar 2015 14:48:00 -0400Armin Rosen
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/51a792d669bedd715c000009-1200-858/rtr38cuo.jpg" border="0" alt="Reuters Syria Rebels"></p><p>The Syrian civil war is <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/03/syria-enters-year-bloody-civil-conflict-150315063900644.html">an unstoppable cataclysm</a> that's killed nearly a quarter-million people and displaced around ten million more.</p>
<p>It's destroyed Syria's existence as a single national entity. It's deepened Iran's strategic takeover of the northern Levant and created the safe haven in the country's desert east that led to ISIS's rise. At various points the violence has spilled into Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey.</p>
<p>It's the contemporary Middle East's defining event, and one of the deadliest wars of the 21st century.</p>
<p>But Syria and the surrounding region were a far different place on March 16, 2011, when Reuters' Beirut bureau <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/15/AR2011031504576.html">filed a brief report headlined</a> "Rare political protest held in Syria, witnesses say."</p>
<p>On January 14, 2011, popular protests had unseated Tunisian dictator Zine el Abdin ben Ali, who ruled the country since 1989. Less than a month later, on&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;February 11, Hosni Mubarak's three decades in power in Egypt came to a rapid and dramatic close after less than a month of popular protest.</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;On March 17, the UN Security Council <a href="http://www.un.org/press/en/2011/sc10200.doc.htm">voted to authorize military action</a> to protect civilians and enforce a no-fly zone in Libya, a decision that led to Muammar Gaddafi's ouster the following August.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">The day of that Reuters report, it seemed like just about anything was possible in the Middle East — even in Syria, where the Assad regime maintained one of the region's strictest police states. But it's still jarring to go back and read that first report in light of what actually <em>did</em> end up happening: a war that's engulfed much of the region and somehow continues to get worse.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"About 40 people joined a protest in Syria on Tuesday, chanting political slogans, witnesses said, in the first challenge to the ruling Baath Party since civil unrest swept across the Arab world," <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/15/AR2011031504576.html">the report begins</a>, before ominously noting that "<span>Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father 11 years ago, has said there is no chance the political upheaval shaking the Arab Middle East will spread to Syria."</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4db197a3ccd1d55648320000-590-443/sdfdfsAP110422121951.jpg" border="0" alt="syria">The protestors worked their way through a marketplace in the Old City section of Damascus, and the article states that "</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">A YouTube video showed a few dozen people marching after noon prayer near the Umayyad Mosque, clapping and chanting, 'God, Syria, freedom - that's enough,'" a subversive take on a regime-promoted slogan.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">What happened next is a study in authoritarian survivalism, as Assad went about protecting himself from ben Ali and Mubarak's fate and tried his best to prove that their country simply couldn't exist without the regime remaining in power.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Protests quickly spread, with 10,000 people reportedly attending a protest in Daraa on March 19th. The regime began deploying snipers and plain-clothes security officers to break up the protests — which only encouraged more protest. <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/syria-timeline-96270.html">Over 3,500 activists had been killed by November</a>, and by the end of the year Syria was an incipient state of civil war.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54f881e2eab8eac17e6eb469-1200-858/assad loyalist syria flag photo.jpg" border="0" alt="Assad loyalist Syria flag photo"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">The US and Assad ally Russia <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/03/2012327153111767387.html">supported a peace plan in March of 2012</a> that effectively called on the opposition to lay down its arms.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">With Assad refusing to consider stepping down and the international community doing little to affect his ouster, the country was soon split between regime and rebel-held spheres of control, without an obvious political solution that either side could accept. Iranian and Shi'ite militant backing for the Assad regime throughout 2012 ensured that the conflict would take on a regional and sectarian character, something that attracted both Shi'ite and Sunni foreign fighters to the battlefield.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Today, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-syrian-revolution-is-over--heres-what-comes-next-2015-3">the Assad regime survives</a> — but mostly within an urban and coastal enclave created at an almost unfathomable human cost. For now, ISIS and Iran appear to be the war's big winners.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54fb19cc69beddea631b1dd1-1200-1091/2000px-syria5.png" border="0" alt="syria"><br></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">None of that was a certainty four years ago. The closing lines of Reuters' report on one of the first protests of the Syrian uprising are a reminder of how rapidly the situation spiraled out of control — and of the possible world-shaking crises lurking beneath even the most seemingly peripheral global events.</span></p>
<p>"'The date is [March] 15. . . . This is the first obvious uprising against the Syrian regime. . . . Alawite or Sunni, all kinds of Syrians, we want to bring down the regime,'" Reuters reported, describing a YouTube video of the March.&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"There was no reaction from the Syrian government."&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>Here's video of the protest:</p>
<p><iframe width="800" height="450" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kwjzm9uMpzw"></iframe></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-koplow-israels-election-will-be-unpredictably-close-2015-3" >Israel's election will be a nail-biter</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-4-year-old-report-shows-how-badly-syria-spiraled-out-of-control-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/going-clear-sundance-premiere-scientology-bombshells-2015-1">6 Crazy Things Revealed In HBO's Explosive New Scientology Documentary 'Going Clear'</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-syrian-revolution-is-over--heres-what-comes-next-2015-3The Syrian Revolution is over — but so is Assad's power and prestigehttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-syrian-revolution-is-over--heres-what-comes-next-2015-3
Mon, 16 Mar 2015 11:28:00 -0400Hussein Abdul-Hussein
<p class="p1"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5506f3d6eab8ea156183e83e-1200-924/syria-anti-assad-protest-edlib-news.jpg" border="0" alt="Syria Anti Assad Protest Edlib News"></p><p>Four years after its outbreak, the Syrian revolution is dead — not because President Bashar al-Assad has defeated it, but because he has derailed it, and while doing so, has also undermined his own rule.</p>
<p class="p1">On 15 March 2011, Syria’s best and brightest took to the streets and presented what proved to be one of the most inspiring Arab uprisings on record. Syria’s revolutionaries were brave, creative, poetic, enduring and sacrificing. They thought if they pushed toward a better Syria, the world would not let Assad bloody them. But he did, and the world — despite all its charters on civility and humanity — allowed him perpetrate a brutal genocide.</p>
<p class="p1">By brutalizing on an unprecedented scale, Assad brought the beast out of many Syrians. Moderates, having led the early stages of the uprising, went into exile and ceded ground to radicals, both local and foreign. Those who stayed and survived eventually turned into monsters. If you have not seen it yet, go watch <a href="http://www.returntohoms.com/"><em>Return to Homs</em></a>, a documentary about one of the most charismatic, peaceful and energetic Syrian rebels, Abdul-Basset al-Sarout, and his transformation from a rally leader to a thug now fighting with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="p1">Unrealistic dreams aside, Syria missed its chance to transform into a better country in 2011, just as Lebanon missed its opportunity in 2005. The late Samir Kassir was wrong: there are no roses in Damascus or in Beirut. The Levant is a desert full of thorns.</p>
<p class="p1"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">While ongoing battles might suggest that Syria’s revolution is not over yet, trends show that Assad will prevail as armed insurgents turn into isolated pockets which, while ambushing Assad forces here and there, will not be able to mount serious threats against main regime targets.</span></p>
<p class="p1">Assad’s victory, however, will come at the price of his independence.&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Assad reasoned that by turning his fight against the rebels into an international war on terror, he could get a pass from the international community to finish off insurgents and resume his rule. Assad did turn Syria into an international issue, but not one that could lend real credence to a war on his own people. The world doesn’t sympathize with his victims, either.</span></p>
<p class="p1">By turning Syria into a world affair, Assad put his country on the bargaining table between America and Iran. From that point on, Assad’s fate became a function of US-Iranian talks.<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="p1"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5435339cecad049b1106f090-800-536/8680927096_fd25ceee6b_o.jpg" border="0" alt="assad syria" style="color: #000000; font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Perhaps Assad thought his Iranian allies would give him a hand and leave him alone, but that will prove a miscalculation. Iran has invested heavily in Syria: it will not accept anything less than full control.</span></p>
<p class="p1">Yet Iran is also known for rewarding its protégé. For his steadfastness, Assad will remain president of Syria. But all his decisions in peacetime, as in these war days, will be in the hands of Iran.</p>
<p class="p1">So why did Obama let Syria slip into Iranian hands?</p>
<p class="p1">Assad was never a friend to America in the first place. Other than their borders with Israel, Syria and Lebanon have no strategic or geopolitical importance in Washington’s eyes. As far as Washington is concerned, anti-Israel paramilitaries such as Hezbollah and Hamas have shown restraint after engaging in bloody wars with Israel. Whoever controls Syria’s borders with Israel will not be that different from what Israel is dealing with now in southern Lebanon and Gaza.</p>
<p class="p1">President Obama believes that any deal with Iran benefits America. If Iran becomes a US friend and ally, then its nuclear program will become a non-issue. If a deal gives Iran dominance over the region, then that would be even better. If Iran turns out to be a friend, then it will do America’s bidding. If Iran remains hostile, then expending resources to control restless Arab areas will take a toll on Iran’s power.</p>
<p class="p1">Either way, whether Iran is friend or foe, it will fight ISIS and groups that America want to see vanquished, or so goes Obama’s thinking.</p>
<p class="p1"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Whatever transpires from the US-Iran talks, the Assad that was the independent and powerful ruler of Syria is no more. If he stays, he will be Iran’s man. And anyway, he will be presiding over a country reduced to rubble that will take many decades to stabilize and rebuild, to say nothing of projecting power in the region like it did prior to 2011.</span></p>
<p class="p1">In the coming months, Iran and Assad will mop up the remaining insurgency, but Syria will not go back to its pre-2011 days.<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="p1">Against an international background of deals and intrigue, and due to socioeconomic shortcomings, the Syrian rebels have not been able to transform Syria into a better place. And in his shortsightedness, Assad threw Syria into a game much bigger than he is capable of playing.<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="p1">Syria is heading somewhere new. No one knows what the Iranian dawn will look like, even if many can guess.</p>
<p class="p1"><em style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of </em><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Alrai</span><em style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"> newspaper. He tweets </em><a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain"><span class="s1"><em>@hahussain</em></span></a></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-koplow-israels-election-will-be-unpredictably-close-2015-3" >One man holds the key to Israel's elections</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-syrian-revolution-is-over--heres-what-comes-next-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trailer-point-and-shoot-documentary-libyan-revolution-2015-2">This 26-year-old from Baltimore took a 35,000-mile road trip and ended up fighting in the Libyan revolution</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/thomas-joscelyn-al-qaeda-was-planning-to-hijack-the-arab-spring-2015-3Documents from the Bin Laden compound show how Al Qaeda was planning to hijack the Arab Springhttp://www.businessinsider.com/thomas-joscelyn-al-qaeda-was-planning-to-hijack-the-arab-spring-2015-3
Wed, 04 Mar 2015 13:31:44 -0500Thomas Joscelyn
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5329c4b3ecad040d31df3c0f-1200-924/osama-bin-laden-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Osama Bin Laden"></p><p>As the so-called “Arab Spring” swept through the Muslim-majority world in 2011, some US officials and counterterrorism&nbsp;analysts proclaimed that&nbsp;al Qaeda had been left “<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/06/29/remarks-john-o-brennan-assistant-president-homeland-security-and-counter">on the sidelines</a>.”</p>
<p>However, the limited selection of publicly-available documents captured in Osama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011 tell a different story. The al Qaeda chieftain&nbsp;and his subordinates saw an opportunity.</p>
<p>Atiyah Abd al Rahman, who served as al Qaeda’s general manager, discussed the political upheaval in a letter written to bin Laden just weeks before the al Qaeda CEO was killed in his Abbottabad, Pakistan safe house. Rahman’s&nbsp;letter was introduced&nbsp;as evidence in the trial of Abid Naseer, who is alleged to have taken part in al Qaeda’s plotting in Europe and New York City. Just months after penning it, Rahman was <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/08/top_al_qaeda_leader_3.php">killed in a US drone strike</a> in northern Pakistan.</p>
<p>“We are currently following the Arab Revolutions and the changes taking place in Arab countries,” Rahman wrote. “We praise you, almighty God, for the demise of the tyrants in Tunisia and Egypt.”</p>
<p>Rahman mentions the “situation” in countries such as Libya, Syria, and Yemen, explaining that he has included “some of what” he “wrote to some of my brothers concerning these revolutions.”</p>
<p>“In general,” Rahman argued, “we think these changes are sweeping, and there is good in them, God willing.” Rahman wondered if bin Laden had considered putting out a speech on the uprisings, noting that al Qaeda’s CEO had “not made any statements as of now,” as “hopefully” bin Laden was “waiting for these revolutions to mature and reach stability.”</p>
<p>Rahman wrote that “it might be good for” Yunis al Mauritani, a key figure in al Qaeda’s “external operations” (or international terrorist operations) who was <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/09/pakistani_forces_cap.php">subsequently captured in Pakistan</a>, to “send his brothers to Tunisia and Syria and other places.” Bin Laden’s general manager believed that the “Syrian brothers would have to wait a little for the revolution in Syria to succeed in taking down Bashar Assad’s regime, and for the country to become degenerated and chaotic.”</p>
<p>His&nbsp;conclusion proved to be wrong. Al Qaeda groomed&nbsp;an official branch in Syria, the Al Nusrah Front, to battle&nbsp;Assad’s government and its allies. And al Qaeda’s senior leadership later <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/09/senior_al_qaeda_stra.php">sent a cadre of officials to Syria</a> to help guide this effort, as well as to plot attacks in the West.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5433f2ddecad04d6033301a9-733-549/al-nusra-protest-aleppo.jpg" border="0" alt="Al Nusra Protest Aleppo"></p>
<p>The Tunisian with Yunis “could travel straight to Tunisia now,” as “he could easily enter the country, and then some of our people could travel there and get in,” Rahman wrote. The “three Syrians” will “hopefully” be able to&nbsp;get into their home country. &nbsp;</p>
<p>There is no clear indication of who these Syrians and the Tunisian are, or what happened to them. Some of Yunis’ men were eventually captured alongside him, while others likely remained free.</p>
<p>But the bin Laden files give some&nbsp;details with respect to Libya.</p>
<h3><strong>Freed members of the&nbsp;Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)</strong></h3>
<p>“The changes that have taken place in the Arab region are enormous, and many other things must change with them,” Rahman wrote. “Take Libya as an example. The last thing we have heard from the brothers in Libya is that they have started to arrange their affairs. They are engaging in activities and they have a role there, praise God.”</p>
<p>Rahman’s words confirm that early on in the Libyan revolution al Qaeda’s senior leaders were communicating with their “brothers” in the country. He goes on to note the role played by the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an <a href="http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/NSQE01101E.shtml">al Qaeda-linked organization that gave bin Laden some of his most trusted lieutenants</a>.</p>
<p>“Brothers from the Libyan Fighting Group and others are out of jail,” Rahman wrote. “There has been an active Jihadist Islamic renaissance underway in Eastern Libya (Benghazi, Derna, Bayda and that area) for some time, just waiting for this kind of opportunity. We think the brothers’ activities, their names, and their ‘recordings’ will start to show up soon.”</p>
<p>It is interesting to note that Rahman seemed encouraged by the release of the LIFG members, despite the fact that some of the group’s imprisoned leaders in Libya had previously rejected another LIFG faction’s decision to formally merge with al Qaeda. That rebuke of al Qaeda, <a href="https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/lifg-revisions-posing-critical-challenge-to-al-qaida">issued in September 2009</a>, was made while the LIFG jihadists were stills detained by Muammar al Qaddafi.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/53fba10469beddf475a299ca-1200-924/libya-islamist-militants.jpg" border="0" alt="Libya Islamist Militants"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Rahman was right to be bullish with respect to the jihadists’ prospects in Libya. In their 2009 revisions, the detained&nbsp;LIFG leadership said they had given up on their quest to dethrone Qaddafi. But when the opportunity arose less than two years later, LIFG veterans </span><a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/04/ex-gitmo_detainee_tr.php">became key rebel leaders in the fight</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> against the regime. And while the LIFG evolved into multiple factions, some of its committed jihadists continue to fight against anti-Islamist forces to this day.</span></p>
<p>LIFG veterans who had previously joined al Qaeda, such as <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/01/an_ex-guantanamo_det.php">an ex-Guantanamo detainee named Sufian Ben Qumu</a>, were among the jihadists who returned to the fight. Ben Qumu went on to become a prominent figure in Ansar al Sharia in Derna, which has <a href="http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/NSQE14514E.shtml">worked with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)</a>, an official branch of al Qaeda, and other al Qaeda groups in Libya. On the night of Sept. 11, 2012, some of Ansar al Sharia in Derna’s fighters took part in the assault on the US Mission and Annex in Benghazi, Libya.</p>
<p>Another LIFG veteran, Salim Derby, leads the Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade (ASMB) in Derna. In December of 2014, the ASMB established the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC), an alliance of jihadists in the city. The MSC was set up in opposition to General Khalifa Haftar’s forces.</p>
<h3><strong>The “brothers’ enthusiasm” for jihad in Libya</strong></h3>
<p>The newly-released bin Laden files show that al Qaeda operatives requested to relocate to Libya in 2011 and Rahman approved their request.</p>
<p>“Still on the subject of Libya, because of the brothers’ enthusiasm and the opportunities that provides for the Jihad there, as well as how much the brothers want to engage in Jihad against the tyrants there,” Rahman wrote to bin Laden, “Brother Anas al-Subi’i al-Libi and others have sought permission to go to Libya.”</p>
<p>Anas al-Subi’i al-Libi was the nom de guerre of <a href="http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/NSQI02301E.shtml%C2%A0">Nazih Abdul Hamed Nabih al-Ruqai’i</a>, who is more commonly known as Abu Anas al Libi. US forces <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/10/core_al_qaeda_member.php">captured Abu Anas in Tripoli in late 2013</a> and he was transferred to a prison in New York, where he died awaiting trial last year.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54f74246eab8ea097bfc5afb-1200-600/abu-anas-al-liby.jpg" border="0" alt="Abu Anas al-Liby"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Federal prosecutors, who charge Abu Anas with helping to plan al Qaeda’s 1998 US embassy bombings, had planned to use bin Laden’s files in the trial. Excerpts in the recently&nbsp;released documents are consistent with previous reports about the files’ contents. [See </span><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">LWJ</em><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> report, </span><a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/01/analysis_osama_bin_l.php">Analysis: Osama bin Laden’s documents pertaining to Abu Anas al Libi should be released</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.]</span></p>
<p>Rahman explained to bin Laden that Abu Anas had written a&nbsp;letter to Abu Yahya al Libi (Rahman’s deputy at the time), and Abu Anas was upset with Rahman for not responding sooner. The letter from Abu Anas was apparently attached to Rahman’s own missive to bin Laden.</p>
<p>“He is upset with me for taking so long to answer,” Rahman wrote. “Of course, the reason for my delay is very objective; praise God, I can be excused, God willing: it is because I have been away, under cover, in hiding, and I have had little contact or movement during this time. The letters he is indicating only just made it to me.”</p>
<p>Rahman forwarded onto bin Laden the reply he sent to Abu Yahya. “In short, I gave him [Abu Anas] permission to go to Libya,” Rahman explained.</p>
<p>Al Qaeda had concerns about Abu Anas though. “He (Anas) has been in bad shape psychologically since he came to us from Iran,” Rahman wrote. Abu Anas had sent his family away.</p>
<p>“When he came here he was very agitated, showing signs of anxiety and depression,” Rahman noted. “He normally has problems with interpersonal issues and mood swings.” Therefore, Abu Yahya and “our aids” took steps to make Abu Anas “feel more comfortable.”</p>
<p>Even so, Abu Anas broke al Qaeda’s security protocols. Rahman fumed: “He was in touch with his family in Libya, even though he knew we had prohibited all communications, and even though it was known that he is a dangerous man and wanted by the Americans, and so on, he contacted them by telephone repeatedly!”<img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5252c7a26bb3f7083ffdcbb6-1200-1715/al-liby-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Anas al-Liby"></p>
<p>Despite al Qaeda’s concerns, Abu Anas was reintegrated into the organization’s chain-of-command. A previous letter from Rahman to bin Laden, dated June 19, 2010, notes that Abu Anas was assigned to al Qaeda’s security committee.</p>
<p>“I directed him [Abu Anas] to work with the brothers in the security committee,” Rahman wrote to bin Laden. “I told them to sit with him and introduce to him the work and the world etc. It is normal for any person after a long absence, especially in jail, that he needs some time to figure out how things work.”</p>
<p>Rahman added that Abu Anas was seeking “reassurance” about bin Laden. “We reassured him and told him about your letters and that you follow his news through us.”</p>
<p>In August 2012, more than one year after Abu Anas moved back to Libya, analysts in the Defense Department’s Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO) published a report (“Al Qaeda in Libya: A Profile”) that analyzed al Qaeda’s covert plan for the country. Abu Anas was identified in the report as the&nbsp;“builder of al Qaeda’s network in Libya.”</p>
<p>The CTTSO surmised that Abu Anas is “most likely involved in al Qaeda strategic planning and coordination between AQSL [Al Qaeda Senior Leadership] and Libyan Islamist militias who adhere to al Qaeda’s ideology.” [See <em>LWJ</em> report, <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/09/al_qaedas_plan_for_l.php">Al Qaeda’s plan for Libya highlighted in congressional report</a>.]</p>
<h3><strong>‘Urwah al Libi in direct contact with&nbsp;Al Qaeda Senion Leadership</strong></h3>
<p>The bin Laden files reveal new details concerning AQSL’s ability to communicate with operatives in Libya.</p>
<p>Abu Anas was drawn back to his native country&nbsp;by the uprising against Qaddafi and the role that his al Qaeda brethren were playing in it. In particular, Abu Anas’ zeal for the jihad was fueled by the experience of his comrade, ‘Urwah al Libi.</p>
<p>Rahman wrote to bin Laden in 2011 that Abu Anas had learned the “brother ‘Urwah al Libi (who had been in prison with him [Abu Anas] in Iran) had traveled and gotten [into] Libya.” ‘Urwah al Libi “contacted Anas and encouraged him to come, telling him the roads were good and travel was easy.”</p>
<p>‘Urwah al Libi is also identified as Abu Malik al Libi in Rahman’s letters. Rahman described ‘Urwah as “an outstanding combatant” who decided to stay in Iran after his release from detention rather than rejoin AQSL in Pakistan.</p>
<p>“About a month ago he traveled to Libya; he made it there safely, praise God, and got in touch with some of our brothers there,” Rahman wrote. “We are in contact with him on the net, and we are waiting for some messages from him. He is an important brother for field work, and we anticipate him playing a role in Libya.”</p>
<p>Although Rahman had high hopes for ‘Urwah, it was not meant to be.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4ea020cd69bedd2915000022-900-600/libyan-rebels-1.jpg" border="0" alt="libyan rebels fighting in sirte"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In April 2011, around the same time Rahman wrote his letter to bin Laden, </span><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">Al Hayat</em><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> reported that ‘Urwah had been killed in an ambush by Qaddafi’s forces. ‘Urwah was described as one of the LIFG’s “prominent leaders” in </span><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">Al Hayat’s</em><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> account. The paper’s sources said ‘Urwah’s “weight” in the LIFG could not “be disregarded,” as he was held in high regard by the LIFG’s leadership in Libya prior to his demise.</span></p>
<h3><strong>An alleged proposal from the British</strong></h3>
<p>Before joining the jihad in Libya, and while he was still in Iran, ‘Urwah sent Rahman an email saying that “some of the Libyan brothers in England had talked to him about” an alleged offer.</p>
<p>According to Rahman’s summary of the email, which he relayed to bin Laden, the British wanted to cut a deal.&nbsp;“British Intelligence spoke to them (these Libyan brothers in England), and asked them to try to contact the people they knew in al Qaeda to inform them of and find out what they think about the following idea: England is ready to leave Afghanistan [if] al Qaeda would explicitly commit to not moving against England or her interests.”</p>
<p>Rahman told ‘Urwah that AQSL would consider the proposal. “He [‘Urwah] may have told the Libyan brothers by now, and they may have told the British,” Rahman wrote to bin Laden. “I do not have any confirmation, of course, and he (‘Urwah) might provide something in his next message, though he will be very busy in Libya now. This is what happened, and we ask God to bless us with his guidance.”</p>
<p>Additional evidence is required to evaluate this supposed proposal. The information contained in Rahman’s letter is,&nbsp;at best, thirdhand. It was passed from the “Libyan brothers” in the UK, to ‘Urwah, and then finally to Rahman.</p>
<h3><strong>Al Qaeda’s response to the “Arab Spring”</strong></h3>
<p>A previously released letter from bin Laden to Rahman, dated April 26, 2011, appears to be the al Qaeda emir’s reply to the issues addressed above. For instance, bin Laden mentioned the putative offer from the British. Bin Laden&nbsp;believed that the British were close to defeat, so he did not want to “enable them on that.” By the same token, bin Laden wanted to decline the supposed proposal “without slamming the door completely closed.”</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/50e5b8c669bedd210600000e-1200-858/al jazeera osama.jpg" border="0" alt="al jazeera osama bin laden"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Bin Laden also enclosed a statement on the revolutions, just as Rahman had requested, and asked that it be sent to the Al Jazeera television network. Indeed, much of bin Laden’s reply is devoted to the uprisings.</span></p>
<p>The head of al Qaeda believed that Islamist parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood, would be the primary winners in the new political order, and the jihadists&nbsp;should not seek conflict with them.</p>
<p>“It would be&nbsp;nice to remind our brothers in the regions to be patient and deliberate, and warn them of entering into confrontations with the parties belonging to Islam, and it is probable that most of the areas will have governments established on the remnants of the previous governments,&nbsp;and most probable these governments will belong to the Islamic parties and groups, like the Brotherhood and the like,” bin Laden wrote.</p>
<p>“[O]ur duty at this stage is to pay attention to the call among Muslims and win over supporters and spread the correct understanding,” bin Laden continued, “as the current conditions have brought on unprecedented opportunities and the coming of Islamic governments that follow the Salafi doctrine is a benefit to Islam.”</p>
<p>“The more time that passes and the call increases, the more the supporters will be of the people, and the more widespread will be the correct understanding among the coming generations of Islamic groups,” bin Laden believed.</p>
<p>As the rivalry between the Islamic State and al Qaeda became a central issue in the jihadists’ world, Islamic State officials and their supporters increasingly accused Zawahiri of taking al Qaeda down a deviant path by not advocating armed jihad in all Arab countries at all times. But Zawahiri’s approach to the countries affected by the political tumult was broadly consistent with that advocated by bin Laden in one of his final letters.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54e519f069beddc6637dac46-800-509/isis libya flag big.jpeg" border="0" alt="ISIS Libya Flag"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Bin Laden thought, for example, that&nbsp;there was “a sizable direction within the Brotherhood that holds the Salafi doctrine, so the return of the Brotherhood and those like them to the true Islam is a matter of time.”&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>Accordingly,&nbsp;bin Laden wrote that the “more attention paid to explaining Islamic understanding, the sooner their return is, so preserving the Muslim movements today and adjusting their direction requires effort and attention, keeping in mind the necessity of being kindly to the sons of the nation&nbsp;who fell under misguidance for long decades.”</p>
<p>Bin Laden’s words show he had a&nbsp;more nuanced approach to political Islamists than is widely believed. Even though al Qaeda has harshly criticized the Brotherhood, bin Laden still saw its rule as a “half solution” that was better than the previous regimes.</p>
<p>Of course, in Egypt and elsewhere, events did not transpire exactly as bin Laden had hoped.</p>
<p>Regardless,&nbsp;in the wake of the political revolutions, Bin Laden approved Rahman’s request to allow certain al Qaeda operatives to return to their home countries. He told Rahman that he had previously written of “the necessity of sending some qualified brothers to the field of the revolutions in their countries, to attempt to run things in a wise and jurisprudent manner in coordination with the Islamic powers there.”</p>
<p>While we only have a small subset of bin Laden’s&nbsp;internal correspondence, the letters we do have show that al Qaeda was much more keen to exploit&nbsp;developments throughout the Arab world than <a href="http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/27/time-to-declare-victory-al-qaeda-is-defeated-opinion/">some Western analysts</a> believed.</p>
<p>In addition to Abu Anas al Libi and ‘Urwah al Libi, al Qaeda dispatched other trusted lieutenants to Libya to lead its efforts.</p>
<p>In 2011, Ayman al Zawahiri sent his own emissary, Abd al Baset Azzouz, to Libya. Azzouz <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/09/treasury_designation_1.php">had approximately 200 fighters</a> in his al Qaeda group at one point. Azzouz was <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/12/representative_of_ay.php">reportedly captured</a> in Turkey late last year.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-backed-syria-rebel-group-dissolves-itself-after-losses-2015-3" >One of the main US-backed Syrian rebel groups just admitted defeat</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/thomas-joscelyn-al-qaeda-was-planning-to-hijack-the-arab-spring-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/trailer-point-and-shoot-documentary-libyan-revolution-2015-2This 26-year-old from Baltimore took a 35,000-mile road trip and ended up fighting in the Libyan revolutionhttp://www.businessinsider.com/trailer-point-and-shoot-documentary-libyan-revolution-2015-2
Sat, 21 Feb 2015 13:01:00 -0500Devan Joseph
<p><a href="http://pointandshootfilm.com/index.html">"Point And Shoot"</a> is a documentary by two-time Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Marshall Curry.</p>
<p>In 2006,&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Matt VanDyke, a timid 26-year-old with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder left his home in Baltimore and set off on a self-described “crash course in manhood.” He bought a motorcycle and a video camera and began a 35,000-mile motorcycle trip through Northern Africa and the Middle East. While traveling, he struck up an unlikely friendship with a Libyan hippie, and when revolution broke out in Libya, Matt joined his friend in the fight against dictator Muammar Gaddafi.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><em>Video courtesy of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/marshallcurry/featured">Marshall Curry Productions</a></em></p>
<p><strong>Stream the full film on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TJ2D3HC/ref=tsm_1_fb_lk">Amazon</a>&nbsp;&amp; <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/point-and-shoot/id937888938">iTunes</a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/point-and-shoot/id937888938"></a></strong></p>
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<p><strong>&nbsp;</strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trailer-point-and-shoot-documentary-libyan-revolution-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p>